Spiderwebs
by Vanessa S. Quest
Summary: Threads in the Darkness by Ice PrinceI & Vanessa S. Quest. Beta Writing2Death. In a series of complex cases and life moments, Agents Aaron Hotchner and Spencer Reid pursue criminal minds without losing their own while dating and keeping up their family.


Police visits at 4AM were never good. At best it meant you had to get up to find an insurance card or triple-A's number, at worst... well, Attorney General Patrick Jackson looked dumbly at Sheriff Wyatt Brown as he wore his flannel pajamas and a royally PO'ed missus on his arm.

"Sorry for the …uh… early wake up call, but we have a bit of a problem. Old Man Horton's been shot. His grandson just found the body when he came in from a night of partying…"

"You should refrain from putting that, specifically, into your reports," deadpanned the Attorney General.

"I guess I'll put on the coffee…" his wife Barbara announced before she walked inside, toward the kitchen.

"This looks bad, Pat, I don't think our office can handle this circus on our own."

"I'm already dialing, Wyatt. Just have a seat, Barbara makes the best 4AM coffee on this side of Dallas."

The last 8 days really were getting to him. He drove with as much attention to the road as he could muster. Between the rain and the snow it wasn't going to be easy. But a slow smile ghosted across Hotch's mouth. "Reid." He warned.

"Sir." All innocence and wide eyed, Reid grinned widely. "My hand just wandered over there of its own accord."

"Of course it did," Hotch smirked. "But if I'm gonna get us home safely I'm going to need my attention further north of your hand on my thigh."

"Oh, sorry. I was just going for a distraction."

"I do love you, you know."

Reid smiled. "I just want us to be home, in bed- making love or asleep. Both sound like heaven right now."

Hotch couldn't disagree.

And of course his cell phone started to rumble. "Of course. Damn, it's Strauss."

He clicked his hands free on. "Ma'am."

"I can't help but wonder when I got demoted to being your secretary, taking your calls from the Attorney General in Texas..."

"Ma'am?"

"They want you in Dallas right away."

"Director, we've been on duty without rest for nearly eight days now."

"You tell that to your friend Pat."

"I'll call the team."

"I stopped Garcia at the door. You'll meet at the strip in an hour."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't ma'am me."

"Yes, Director."

"Have you turned your car yet?"

Hotch clicked off his hands free, shrugged his shoulders at Reid, pushed his turn signal and pulled to the side of the road.

Within a minute he and Reid were kissing, and held each other as if they were saying goodbye.

Then Hotch pulled himself upright, straightened into the shoulders of his overcoat. He checked the street as he pulled back out into traffic, made the turn and headed to the airstrip.

Niccolo Machiavelli once said, "No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."

JJ flipped down the files onto two of the tables surrounded by equally tired BAU agents on the jet.

Reid, curled on the couch already half asleep flipped the pages as a flip-book and had probably already attained all of the applicable data in it to the others' misery. JJ placed an extra file at the table with Rossi and Morgan, sure Prentiss would join them versus Hotch, herself, and Reid at the other end.

Ponytail unwashed for two sweaty and trying days, JJ swept her hair that much higher before ever entering the jet. Truthfully, the resupply hadn't even happened, and they were all surviving off of one pot of coffee they had made only two hours before to get them to drive home safely once they'd land.

"The victim is Reginald Thomas Horton the Fourth. His body was discovered at 3AM this morning by his grandson, 'Reggie' William Horton, when he returned home that evening. His alibi has checked out, so far we know he was hit with buckshot and the suspected weapon is a missing 12 gauge from his collection. Also missing were several valuable pieces of art, his wife's jewelry kept in her bedroom, and ten thousand dollars in cash that he kept in an open safe in the kitchen. It looks as if robbery was the motive; however…"

"Why are we getting called in to a case like this, Hotch? We just got back and they're sending us to a home-invasion?" Prentiss said as she crossed her left arm over her right, while she managed to keep her right hand steady to prevent a coffee-spill.

JJ smiled at Prentiss and cleared her throat, "However, Mr. Horton was not the first in his business to die this month. Two weeks ago he contacted Attorney General Jackson with suspicions about the disappearance of one of his board members, Jeanette Wendilynn Jackson, no relation, three days later. She was found suffocated inside her summer villa in Aspen."

"No relation to the Attorney General, but what about to Mr. Horton? That's awfully convenient for him to notice the absence of a board member so quickly. Were they having an affair?"

"I doubt it, that was Mr. Horton's niece." JJ added before she sent a look at Hotch. "We should land in another two hours, how do you want to approach this?"

Hotch looked more awake than the others and immediately went into unit chief mode. "Okay, Rossi you and Morgan go to the crime scene. Prentiss see what the medical examiner has to say, JJ, you and Reid go set up a command center with the Dallas PD and work on the geographic profile; I'll go talk with Pat, the Attorney General."

They all nodded and set about to read the files and get as rested as they could for the few hours they'd have before they'd land. Prentiss mouthed to Morgan, "_Pat_…?"

Reid was asleep on the couch, his file fell quietly from his hands.

Prentiss and Morgan approached the coffee station and Prentiss gave Morgan a threatening look.

"Okay, Princess, if you need the coffee..."

"What did you call me?" Prentiss bristled.

"Focus you two." Hotch approached, empty coffee cup in hand.

"Shhh," JJ said, as the small coffee area became doubly overcrowded. "The little Prince is asleep."

They all looked at Reid, now completely asleep, abandoned to it.

"Next plane, we all get a couch," Rossi said, and now the entire team stood within sniffing distance of the depleted coffee pot.

"Okay folks, it's a tea party from here on out." Rossi grinned.

Hotch dipped his gunpowder tea into his cup of boiling water and hoped it was enough caffeine to keep him going. He shook his head at his drug of choice.

"I hate tea." Morgan groused. "I hate home invasions and I hate suffocations."

"You're just such a thrilling companion Derek." JJ piped up.

"Focus-" Hotch fell into his refrain.

"What do we know?"

"You gonna wake up the sleeping prince?" Prentiss motioned to Reid with her now nearly empty coffee cup.

"He probably knows everything about both crimes by now." Rossi grimaced at the tea. "How can you drink this?" Rossi posited of Hotch.

"Give him another hour, let's get a read-through then talk an hour before we land," Hotch reasoned.

Morgan gave Hotch an odd look and returned his gaze to the file folder.

Before long Hotch shook Reid's shoulder. "Time, Reid."

"Thank you, Aaron." Reid was only half awake.

"We're just outside of Dallas."

"We are? Did we review?"

"You're going to set up at the cop shop and work on the preliminary geographic profile with JJ." Hotch bent his head to see if Reid was truly awake and understood him, he nodded.

"Okay."

"Got it. Anything else I should know?"

"No, everyone's got assignments. No problem except the lack of caffeine."

The landing was easy and the unit moved to get their go bags and set off out of the jet.

On the runway stood a black stretch limo and the team looked at each other as if for an explanation.

As Hotch stepped out onto the stairway he was on the phone with Garcia. "Yeah check for that record for us. Something's going on there."

Garcia's voice sounded far away and half covered by the runway noise. "Will do my liege, will get back to you soonest."

Hotch looked at his phone and snapped it off as two rather large men walked up to him. "Agent Hotchner," One spoke, not even a question. "You're to come with us."

"I'll catch up," Hotch said as he moved along with the two black-suited men. Both of them were tall enough to make even Hotch look dwarfed.

"The Attorney General wants to speak with you."

Hotch shook his head, 'Only in Texas.' He thought.

Morgan exchanged a look with Rossi at the foot of the staircase. Rossi, too tired to give a playful smirk merely uttered an audible, "Lucky bastard…"

Morgan gave a smile at that before he realized Hotch's luck wasn't riding in style, but riding with coffee. His face fell. "We're hitting the first coffee joint we see between here and that crime scene."

Rossi slung his go-bag over his shoulder, "Sure we are… and you believe that too."

Morgan merely shook his head begrudgingly and headed to the Tahoe in defeat. "I'll drive."

As they walked through the door it hit them how textbook this was. Nothing was remarkable or out of place for a robbery, all the ear-marks were there. The heaviest materials left behind, the light but pawn-able jewelry was bagged, some of the most expensive pieces were still housed in their hidden compartment- it screamed, literally screamed home invasion. With zero indicators that this was more than a fox of a thief who had gotten into a hen-house, it even looked as if the unsub had only gained access to the gun when the victim had taken it out of firearm cabinet to use in self-defense.

That's where the CSUs' came in. Morgan knew about blood spatter patterns, what high, medium, and low velocity patterns meant. He knew what droplets and ovals and ellipses meant too, but he was not a walking protractor able to consistently gauge them just by a quick glance across the wall.

No, that would be Reid.

Instead, he had to get six inches from the wall and count out the 29 some-odd ball-bearing sized holes in the wall and the spray of arterial blood that hit immediately overtop it with disgust and impatience. Telling by the two splotches of patterned red spray, he'd say the weapon had been double-cocked and fired in succession.

"He was hit twice, once -bang- in the stomach, the unsub took a step closer, fired again not three seconds later while he still stood in shock of being shot the first time. Buck shot passed through him, no negative space, the unsub was at least 7 feet from him. So he disarmed the victim, has his loot, but he doesn't run. By the way the unsub hit him twice without even hesitating, he's handled a gun like that before. The motions were to stabilize from the kick-back. How many house burglars do you know who practice regularly with shot-guns?"

"True, but look at what he took, the unsub doesn't know jewelry, just what he'd think would sell. Diamonds? This size? They have serial numbers laser-scribed. We'll get him the second he steps into a pawn shop to hock the goods. And the paintings, if these tags are right, aren't ones people think they can sell in Wal-Mart. He had an early Renoir, a press-print from Warhol, those were numbered, and this one was early in the sequence. The place is thoroughly tossed, this was what the thief stumbled onto, but how did he go from not knowing what was in here to that big of a pay-day and getting the loaded shotgun from a trophy hunter? That's what's bothering me."

"It started by the steps." Morgan nodded toward the disturbed runner, the opened safe behind the painting. "He heard someone messing with the safe, got his gun, comes to investigate, but doesn't see him anymore… so he starts to head down the stairs, the unsub spots him though, pulls the runner. He's down the stairs and takes them hard, there's blood at the bottom from where he bit his tongue. The unsub quickly wrestled the gun from him shoves him back, demands the combination, this is the last of the haul before he books. He makes the victim punch it in, it opens, he tells him to move toward the kitchen. The vic obliges, thinking he'll get robbed and then maybe get his opportunity when the unsub makes a run so he complies- he heads to the kitchen, passing his show art that's been cut down and stolen… bang. Follow-through, bang, he just realized he's been shot. No silent alarm's been tripped, no one is on their way, he slumps over, bleeds out. The unsub leaves. Kept the gun, why'd he do that if he was wearing gloves? Because the old man was alive when he left! So I'm askin' myself what kind of cat burglar sneaks into the house of a man with a security alarm and knows he has valuables but doesn't know how much where, or what combos are, or if the man's even there? He did make sure the grandson wasn't there though. Maybe a friend of the kid?"

"I don't think so. These are sophisticated entries, it's a contradiction though. He's careful and meticulous with what he steals but doesn't grab things he can pawn? But he could hack the security code with a universal key-card from the security company? If this was inside he'd just have the code. Maybe this was coerced, things go wrong- a job that was supposed to go smooth, but the old man shows? The thief thinks it's cut and dry but the ring-man knows it won't be…?"

"Manipulative son of a bitch. Hold on, I'm going to snap a photo of this and send it to my girl, maybe she can get us some height calculations from this."

Morgan hit send immediately after flashing off the handful of pictures. Two seconds later his phone was abuzz and jived to a samba beat, "Hey there baby-girl, take a look at those and tell me the measurements, would ya?"

"Hmm, no need, you are a perfect 10 followed by a baker's dozen inch-"

He attempted to cut in but wasn't fast enough, "Now you know I have told you not to run your software on me before…"

"Mm, sugar, that's not software, that's just my trying out Reid's photographic memory for myself. Funny, I still can't do my taxes in three jiffies, but I have your numbers. All of them, and if you try to change them with the phone company I'll hack it and know them anyways."

"Be-have," he said in a tone that showed how much he enjoyed the supposed harassment. Rossi didn't even bat an eyelash, but he did give Morgan a look over.

"She should check her eyes, you're clearly a 47 or 13W, and not in fact, a 10."

Morgan gave a toothy smile, "I'll accept proof of that in the form of a swank set of those Italian loafers in a slate-grey/black wash."

"You wish," Rossi scoffed. "We have what we need from here, let's head back and check in… Reid better not have drained the coffee or we might have another suffocation death on our hands, because _I'll_ strangle him with my bare hands."

Hotch was hustled into the limo while his erstwhile guards piled into the front seats.

"Aaron."

"Pat?"

"I wanted to talk with you before you got started on this. Can I offer you a drink, I've got a wonderful Bourbon," he lifted the glass he was sipping from.

"Unless you've got coffee…"

The Attorney General smiled, "light no sugar, right here."

Hotch nodded. "Good memory."

"Thank you, it's a useless talent. How's Jack coping?"

Aaron felt the burning start in his eyes, "He's doing okay, still getting used to the changes, but he's amazing, he'll adapt. Listen Pat, I didn't thank you for coming out to Virginia."

"We're old friends Aaron, of course I wanted to be there for you. You doing okay, or reasonably well?"

"Slowly, it's taking me longer than I thought. Some days harder than others, but there's Spencer."

Pat nodded and held Aaron's wrist. "It will get better, trust me on this."

"So, you wanted to talk."

"Look, Aaron, this is all very awkward. We need to keep this all quiet if we can. There's a good chance these two killings are related, and Aaron there could be more; at least one more that I'm aware of, a kid months ago. I don't know exactly how it fits together, but things are happening pretty fast."

"Are you related to these people? What's happening?"

"It only seems like a big state. You'd be surprised how big money is inbred. We're not directly related, no. But there's a lot of political power that might be involved."

"I won't be involved in politics, Pat."

"I know that Aaron, but as a favor, can you keep this low profile for now."

"As much as I can, of course, Pat."

Hotch's phone rang. "Prentiss, what do you have?"

"Caffeine withdrawal and bad news, according to the ME we're looking at the third body in seven months from this board. This can't be a coincidence… six months ago Darleen Argentos was killed in a car accident, hit-and-run while she was on her daily jog. The vehicle was later identified as being, of all things, a golf caddy going 20 MPH, the accident report says she went over the rail and down a steep embankment and broke her neck on impact. We have three senseless deaths in a small group of people, but this can't just be happen-stance. It's too close to be. I think someone is going through great lengths to keep us from knowing that these murders are related… Also, I have a little more bad news. In the last two years there have been three unreported deaths from within the board group's families. Garcia pulled them up, one was Chris Horton, 10, the little sister of Reggie Horton. She died of anaphylactic shock after being stung by bees. Andrew Argentos, husband of one Darleen Argentos, was found deceased in his home, the coroner tied it to ventricular fibrillation but neglected to mention he was high as a kite when it happened in his reports. The third deceased was Adellynn Bowery-Horton, she died of infection after undergoing open heart surgery twelve months ago."

Hotch pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Pat. "Have Garcia find out how they were connected and have her call us at station." He disconnected the phone. "We have a problem, we need to know if these killings are because of the business or because of the blood-ties. How familiar are you with the Horton family, Pat?"

Reid looked at the maps he had pinned up to the board. Most of the deaths were in a small town, but there were one or two that might be related in another state. He shook his head.

He sat at the conference room table and drank his coffee, and stared at the map. "Nowhere. Everywhere." He whispered to himself.

JJ stuck her head through the doorway. "Morgan and Rossi are back."

Reid moved to the doorway and watched the team go through introductions with Sheriff Brown and his chief Detective Lieutenant Stewart. Within moments Hotch had arrived with a very official-looking entourage, which Reid figured had to be the Attorney General. Prentiss followed and the introductions were soon over and the entire group moved into the rather small conference room.

Morgan elbowed him, "Coffee?"

"Out the door, take a right and continue down, there's a break room. Coffee is deadly though."

"As long as there's caffeine in it I really don't care." With that, he and Rossi hot-footed it out of the room, Prentiss looked wistfully after them.

Morgan poured out two cups and Rossi grinned. "Both for you?"

He handed one to Rossi and grinned. "Nectar of the gods."

Morgan refilled his cup and then another as he added milk.

Rossi lifted his cup in salute and poured another, he added just a half teaspoon of sugar. Both walked back to the conference room.

Rossi put the extra cup he carried into Prentiss's hands. "Hot," he said.

The team stood at the front of the room, whiteboard behind them, the map to the side near the door.

Morgan handed Hotch the cup of coffee. Hotch took it with a nod. Internally he wondered if Morgan would like flowers. He shook himself to reassert his focus. He held back a yawn.

"We have a preliminary profile; let me remind you, this is only a sketchy look. We'll need more time to put our data together."

The room was silent as Hotch made his way to the whiteboard and JJ started with the pictures from the known crime scenes.

Morgan continued, "Right now we know that these two people have business connections. They work or worked for the same company."

Reid added. "They may be vaguely related, but that's not clear. Our technical analyst is looking into that."

"So this definitely looks like murder not burglary," the AG put in.

"Yes sir, the coincidences make it look that way. And the other possible deaths give us reason to believe there could be an unsub or several unsubs at work here." Reid put the pen to the map. "So far, I've reviewed the past three years mortality records and found a handful of other cases that are possibly linked. It would be clearer if I could establish other patterns, I need more information about the victims and the files I've pulled- there are 39 total. As you're more intimately aware of their patterns, could you tell me anything you recall about these cases, and the victims themselves for my geographic profile? If I can determine where they've crossed over we can start to determine who would benefit most from these deaths."

Suddenly the room had a saucy salsa playing for three bars before Morgan could grab his phone and look apologetic, he answered it with a quick, "Garcia, I'm about to put you on speaker phone- be good, we have company."

"Oracle of the Divine here, would you like the super awesome good news first or the I'm amazing news?"

Hotch touched his ear, Morgan smiled, "We all know of your spectacular abilities, so let's put that one last."

"Well played, my chocolate Adonis, the good news is that all of the files Reid sent me- and PS there were a lot of those, thank you Dr. Bookworm maybe next time you can forward me the abridged version, all had their legal workings through the family practice. Apparently in Texas it's a big to-do to diversify the stock, they run the banks of the town, have oil fields and are investing in coffee, not surprisingly the Horton dynasty has produced several highly successful law firms in and around the Dallas area and use said facilities for all of their pressing legal needs. The second bit of news is that the Horton family tree believes in nepotism. They're hiring practices make a remarkably uncanny copy of the family tree for board-members, CEOs, CFOs, this is a family business. All the victims as of yet have ranged from holding substantial numbers of stocks to actually running the board of their various endeavors. But there is, unfortunately, some bad news in all this. Despite my prowess of godly omnipotence, I cannot observe a clear pattern of succession, but my profiling side-kicks, fear not, for I believe in your ability to make reason of this madness and have thus sent you the address of the most common branch that the family has used for legal proceedings."

"Thank you, Garcia. Good job," Hotch offered.

"Any time, sir," she smiled before she disconnected.

Pat put a hand on his hip, "so you're all going to head over there now, right? Sort this out? Wyatt's none too pleased about my urge to keep this quiet, he's having a hell of a time with keeping the press to sit on their hands. Maybe your liaison can help out with that, but what the town really needs right now is not some great murder-mystery, what they really need is this killing business to stop before Wall Street gets wind and results in massive lay-offs."

Hotch gave the AG a look, "May I have a word?"

Pat held up his hands, the Attorney General deflected, "Right, I know that's not your business and it's not your problem, but this is a small town. I don't think anyone here isn't tied in to their holdings somehow. Hell, even the local baseball diamond's maintained on their park and recreations donations!"

"JJ, see what you can do. Everyone else will head over to look through the records, see if we can get ahead of this."

"Yes sir, excuse me, could you give me the name of the local paper's senior director?" She eyed the Attorney General poignantly, sure she had the information, but she also knew the benefit to the team to get him out from underfoot. Hotch might be used to the scrutiny of big-wigs but that didn't exactly leave the air open for the rest of the team to work.

The team, divided into two Tahoes, pulled out of the police station. Rossi, who managed to snag the keys before Morgan or Prentiss, wound up driving with Prentiss the only one able to put up with his tight right-turns while Morgan opted to keep his finally acquired coffee and thus rode with Hotch and Reid.

Reid gave him a look as he slid into the front seat and gave a quick, "Rossi beat you to the keys, huh?"

Morgan smiled, "good to see you're not rusty."

Reid merely shook his head and loaded in behind Hotch on the driver's side before he pulled out a large genealogy chart. "A geographic profile is pointless in this kind of case, the unsub is clearly confident in the understanding of the properties but these are determined by an internal force, these are specific targets and location is dependent upon accessibility, the murder weapon used was found out of convenience. This usually would mean the unsub is disorganized, but not in this case. This unsub waits for the scenario to fall into an exact set of circumstances before striking, this is a person who meticulously watches and measures, like a serial poisoner, and this may very well be for financial gain or political gain…"

Hotch's phone began to ring, it was quickly silenced when Hotch extracted and answered with a succinct, "Hotchner here."

"Agent Hotchner, my name is Dr. Lawrence Spield, I'm the Medical Examiner at TSU Hospital. I was prompted to call when I entered in a death notification."

"Dr. Spield you said? Who is the notification for?"

"Janice Larson, she's been interned at our adult care facility for the past six years, she had Alzheimer's. I haven't run an autopsy as of yet but her condition had turned for the worse within the last month and she has been in the hospital since then."

Reid tapped Hotch's shoulder, which cued the older man to hand him the phone."Uh, Dr. Spield, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid, has she had any visitors since her stay in the hospital?"

"Why yes, several, she was quite popular."

"You need to collect a urine sample, blood sample, and rush them to the tox labs. Test for Suc-C and KCl, anything that will deteriorate within a 24 hour window. Her heart gave out, didn't it?"

There are several seconds of silence, "…how did you know that?"

"Run the tests." Reid handed it back to Hotch.

"Dr. Spield, two of my agents will be there shortly to discuss the results and the autopsy. Thank you." He disconnected and dialed Prentiss.

"Prentiss speaking."

"You two need to head to TSU Hospital, there's a new victim. We'll do the research here and confer back in two hours at HQ."

"Alright, Rossi, turn left there…" The lines ended as both deposited their phones back in their pockets. Hotch took the final turn toward the parking garage before he turned off the motor.

As the trio exited the car, an older man about 67 years old, and a young woman, no older than Reid, greeted them before the doors to the closed office.

"Agent Hotchner I presume?" The old man shrugged toward his assistant. "The Attorney General himself called, we have the files prepared for you to review. If you have any questions, I'll be in my office."

He made motions for the entrance, the young Legal Aid opened the door for the four men. "We just put a fresh pot of brew on for you. My assistant has pulled the files requested, I don't know what you're trying to pull by bypassing our attorney-client privileges, but I'm none too thrilled by it."

"According to the Texas Rule of Evidence 101 (g) this is merely a fishing expedition. Anything they find here can't lead directly to an arrest, merely names. So, really, sir this isn't as…"

"This is what you get from a piss-ant Legal Aid, a person who doesn't understand the importance of privacy. Shut your mouth and don't volunteer any additional information. I am doing Jackson a favor be even letting you feds in here, normally, I'd have you all tied so tight in red tape your heads'd be spinning for the next three years!"

"And in the meanwhile, how many of your clients would be murdered?" Morgan said; he gave a kind smile to the Legal Aid that he hadn't exchanged introductions with yet. He missed the look that Hotch gave her that cornered a scowl.

"Texas Rule of Evidence 501 (1), I don't have to tell you jack shit and I sure don't have to care. Now go look at the files and then leave because until you have a search warrant those are our property and this is a courtesy." He sauntered to his office before he crisply closed the private door.

"He isn't usually so terse, but you did interrupt his tee-time." She said with a flirtatious smile that did not suit the engagement ring on her finger at all.

Reid bypassed the woman to walk into the reference room, he spotted the coffee pot beside a desk, a chair, and three cases filled to the brim with files.

"What kind of law do you practice here?"

"We're mostly property law but we do estate law, drafting and business law as well." She smiled and hugged her satchel to her chest, "If you'll excuse me, I have to head over to my dress fitting…"

Morgan gave a courteous nod and held the door for her.

Hotch reached a hand out, "Before you go-"

"I'm sorry, I really can't delay them any more, the director's office is straight down the hall, first flight up. Best of luck, gentlemen!"

"What kind of law office is closed on a Friday?" Morgan asked in disbelief.

"The kind with a massive success-rate and clients that meet on the greens, it's more common than you'd think," Hotch offered. "Morgan, I want you to get on the horn with Garcia, see if she can pull up any additional information about this firm."

"…Uh huh, going to fill me in on why?"

"Not just yet. I have to speak with the director." Hotch headed up the steps while Morgan stepped outside.

Meanwhile, Reid shoveled in heaping tablespoons of sugar, he depleted the bowl to half-empty per his normal levels of sugar intake, into his 20oz Styrofoam cup before he swirled and downed the concoction. He scowled at the drink and it's lack of sweetness before he dumped in more.

He had already flipped through the first five folders. In a way it was making sense, these deaths were solidifying stocks, but none of the people listed for inheritance were particularly overlapped, the reasons for the deaths made no sense, most of them weren't even vested yet. He wondered if maybe these were the preludes to the big pay-day, but it made no sense. There wasn't enough information on who that would be, especially with grandpa Horton already out of the running, and the several different business ventures were so diversified it was hard to tell just who would benefit the most from reconciliation of them.

The pounding between his eyes wasn't helping him to focus either. He took another sip of the bitter coffee, it almost tasted like he had taken it without any sugar at all- a horrible mistake he had made no less than four times since his sexual relationship with Hotch had started. As the words began to blur into diplopia he realized his mistake. He forced himself out of the chair, the heavy, ornate piece fell backwards, he rushed for the next box and threw the lid off as he mentally recited the family tree and recalled who was alive and who was deceased and who was holding how many properties, titles and holdings, and who would potentially give anything to which relatives. He had to pull the wills and find which one had the most crossed off names, that would tell him who would be targeted and who the suspect pool would be… but then, of course, wills were supposed to be confidential. The only people who would have access would be in the law group itself…

His features were clammy and white, he didn't know when the room had become so stifling hot but he could recite the precise moment that his stomach cramped so badly that he emptied it's limited contents onto the Persian rug and went into a fit of seizures, well, if he were conscious still he might have been able to. Instead, Reid dropped to the ground, eyes rolled back, his back arched into a taught bow as his arms constricted and writhed, his feet pointed outward into an almost perfect fifth-position any ballerino would be envious of, sans the circumstances.

Foam dripped from the corners of his mouth, somewhere floating in the back of his own mind he wondered how long he was in that state, he could feel every taut muscle, the burn of not breathing, he wanted to scream, if he had any control over his body he would be- instead his mind screamed for his body for Hotch. He could only tell the pain was getting further and further away as he fell farther and deeper from the situation and he was sure that was indeed a very bad sign…

Hotch stood before the door to the senior lawyer. "So we're clear, you do realize we have nothing to do with the white collar crime division, correct?"

The man's brow twitched, the bead of sweat was as clear of an indicator as Hotch needed, "But if you'd like I can get more intimately acquainted to them, that is, if they aren't already breathing down your neck for some of your selective practices… we're just here for information about this case though. And while I'm sure Pat is willing to extend you some …leniencies that you've no doubt negotiated for this exchange, I want to know you aren't hiding anything from the files we asked you to pull. I'm not here for you today but if people die because you hid something from this search and from my team? You won't even have to wait for the white collar division to stop by for a visit, I'll bring you to them directly, in hand-cuffs."

"Agent Hotchner, you may think I scare easily because I'm not some defense attorney, but I can assure you I retired into this field for a reason, those litigations are against the firm and not me directly. You have no authority to come in here, so I suggest you be a little nicer now that we've left the grand-standing at the door. If I don't make a stink about it, my clients wouldn't trust me, you know that. I happen to be good friends with the Horton-Deuver-Bowery-Argentos conglomeration."

"Wait, Deuver?" Hotch touched his finger to his forehead, "We haven't come across that name, how are they involved?"

"The Deuver family is the head family, but they had three daughters and only one son, he died thirty years ago after having three daughters, his son was born nine months after his death. In this business, I'm sure you can guess what that meant for his financial affairs. His children had been left with a percentage of trust funds, but only the living children were given stock shares. The conglomerate came after he left no clear heir, well, that he knew of."

"And what's the name of this son?"

"Liam Wendell Deuver Junior."

"One last thing, your legal aid… what's her name?"

"Oh? The one from earlier? I don't really keep track of them, they come and go so much and I don't handle HR…"

"You don't know the name of the legal aid who was reciting _criminal law_ accurately?"

"So what if she's smart? She doesn't have the right initials attached for me to care. If she picks up a real degree it's a completely different story. She is a pretty one though, if she did that she might even marry well."

Hotch refrained from making any further protests, "Excuse me, I have to place a call." As Hotch headed out of the office he had Garcia dialed, "Garcia, I need you to look up Liam Wendell Deuver, Liam Wendell Deuver Junior, and pull up the HR records for this law firm and give me a list of the legal aids… if they have any photo identification I'll need that as well."

"Can do, on it, but boss-man, who is Liam Deuver?"

"…Probably the rightful heir trying to get back his lost kingdom." Hotch froze at the door to the record room, "Garcia, call 911! We need a bus here asap!" His phone dropped to the ground and closed as he rushed into the room, luckily the forgotten device hit the Persian rug and didn't shatter. "Reid- REID!"

Hotch had his jacket stripped off his shoulders and into a make-shift restraint in a second flat as he used it to apply even pressure on Reid as he pinned him down.

"Reid! Reid can you hear me?"

The signs were obvious, foaming mouth, bolus of vomit, the hallowed words of Spencer's he had so easily glanced over before. "This profiles like a serial poisoner…" it wasn't like a serial poisoner, it was a serial poisoner who just opted for different means.

"Spencer, Spencer come on, hang in there!" The way his lips were purplish blue was horrifying, he was unsure of how much pressure he should apply to prevent thrashing and what would merely cause further injury. He didn't have long to worry about it as Reid's body stalled of its own accord. His body fell unnaturally still suddenly, completely limp except for an incredibly rapid, forceful fluttering he could barely make out from beneath the narrow silk tie. His trained eyes read so closely for signs of life, but all he could see were the flutters of a quickened pulse and a rapidly escalating heartbeat. Reid wasn't breathing.

He pulled Reid's tie off and bit back an apologetic, "Sorry, sorry Spence…" when his overzealous stripping sent Reid's head into the ground a bit roughly. He'd done that in a passionate round of fucking once and left Reid with a horrible migraine for the entirety of the day. It was not his shining example of self-control, but damn it he had worked on that after the fact… right now was not the time to think of that, he'd have plenty of time to reflect with Reid about the practicality of gentility during certain rounds of sex later. Oh god there had to be a later…!

He pressed his lips to Reid's slightly parted lips, his tongue helped to push Reid's down and open further. Beyond the bile-salts he could taste a faint bite of alkaloid. He pulled back and wiped his mouth and searched the room, there at the desk was an almost empty cup of coffee. His eyes narrowed. He took in a sharp breath and forcefully exchanged it with Reid as he eyed for the rise of the younger man's chest.

It was preposterous, almost comical looking to see his belly bloat up like that, if it weren't so horrifying to see his beloved agent not breathing on his own that is.

"God damn it Reid don't you even think of pulling this on me!" He swore as he pulled up for another gulp of air, he momentarily felt guilty for taking the time to say that instead of exchange more air with Reid, that could've been the breath that saved his ability to perform complex math… he breathed into him again.

It went on for that for what felt like five minutes before Morgan rushed in.

"Hotch, what the hell's going on? What do you need an ambulance for?" Morgan froze at the sight of Hotch blowing air into Reid. "Oh hell no- what the fuck happened Hotch?"

Hotch blew in again and pulled up, "The coffee- the tray, the cup- all of it- bag it for evidence, the ER will need it to identify what he was poisoned with." In that moment he saw the pinkness return to Reid's lips, his pulse still radiated at a ridiculously fast tempo was just now starting to slow, it bounded slightly less, yet he still wasn't breathing.

He again breathed into Reid. "Morgan once you're done get outside and bring the paramedics straight in." Hotch himself felt ready to pass out as he gave all his air to Reid, but with his lips a more promising pink, he couldn't see it as a bad exchange.

It took nine additional minutes for the paramedics to show, fourteen minutes total, the same amount of time between when Hotch arrived to his house after he heard the fatal shot that had killed his ex-wife Haley. Somehow, that only pissed him off further.

Reid still wasn't breathing on his own, but his heart was still beating, which that itself was a small miracle given just how bad he looked when Hotch could just look at him. The paramedics had cut off his shirt, intubated him, put on heart monitors and started to gauze up some of the worse gashes from where Reid had flailed into things and managed to cut himself, but mostly there were bruises. Those soft red spots that Hotch knew would turn a deep, dark purple by morning, he'd experienced that transition a few times when he'd studied his lover in the middle of the night after a particularly rough outing in the field and then once they were back at home safe and secure.

He called Garcia, he wanted the name of that bitch paralegal and he aimed to get it before Reid would get to the hospital- which had better not take 14 fucking minutes!

"Now Garcia," Hotch barked into his phone. "The name right now."

"One minute sir, I'm hitting a firewall in their HR data."

"Garcia." His tone was all business.

"Got it. On your phone right now, sir."

Hotch threw his phone to Morgan. "Find her!"

Morgan touched Hotch's shoulder. "Take it easy man, we'll find her."

"Where…where's the evidence? Make sure it's bagged and tagged, I need the lab work done."

"Hotch, the police have it. Hotch, go with Reid. I'll get a car. Go, man."

Hotch took three running steps and then tried to rein in his anger, he walked swiftly out of the offices. The ambulance was tearing off as he got to the street. He ran to the Tahoe, got it turned to chase the ambulance. Lights and sirens a pale imitation of how he was feeling.

Parked in the closest space he could find, he rushed into the Emergency entrance. Only steps behind the gurney that Reid was being taken in on, a nurse cut him off at the pass.

"You can't go in there, sir."

"Please, I've got to be with him. I'm Agent Hotchner with the FBI, I need to be with him."

"Are you related?"

"Yes."

The nurse tried to find the truth of that. "Okay, stay out of the way."

Hotch set himself in a far corner of the small exam room. He tried to calm himself, but couldn't seem to get himself in check.

He searched his pockets for his phone. "Shit." He said almost without a voice behind it.

"Are you okay, sir?" One of the nurses came over to stand by him.

"I need to call in. I need to tell the others."

"Sir, do you think you might want to sit down?"

Rossi suddenly appeared at a break in the curtain. "How's he doing?"

"They're running tests, they've got him on a ventilator, they're trying to neutralize whatever is killing him. Fuck I don't know."

"Hotch come out here for a minute, let me tell you what's going on out here. They've found the aide, looks like she'll alibi out."

"Has the lab work come in, do we know what he took?"

"Aaron, shut up for a minute. Fucking breathe. You're white as a ghost. They're pretty sure it was in the coffee. The tests are being forwarded here, have been. We're on this."

"Someone hurt him Dave, there's nothing I can do. I can't lose him. Jesus, Dave I can't breathe."

Dave grabbed Hotch by his jacket and forced him into one of the plastic waiting room chairs. "Sit down. Come on. You're okay, just give yourself a little time. Just a minute then you can go breathe fire on someone."

"I have to do something, oh god, I can't leave him, but I have to find the fuck who did this." Hotch put both hands to his face.

"You gonna kill him?"

Hotch looked up from his hands at Dave with a fire hard to believe.

Dave took a step back and nodded almost imperceptibly.

Aaron got up and turned toward the curtained area, "He's everything. You can't understand; he's every-fucking-thing."

"Go back to him Aaron, let us catch the bastard."

"The legal aide, I've got strange feeling, but no evidence. She knows criminal law, she shouldn't."

Hotch swallowed hard. He absolutely would not cry.

"I'll get your iPad here. JJ will be here in a few minutes." He looked at the text on his phone, "The lab knows what it is Hotch, they'll be able to help him. Keep the phone, we'll update you." Dave jutted his jaw toward Hotch and handed him his phone.

With a determined walk into the hive of activity in the exam room, Hotch asked one of the nurses what the status was.

"It's touch and go, sir. It'll be a little while before we know for sure."

The nurse edged him to a chair back in his solitary corner. "We all have to wait and see. The treatment is started, time will tell."

He wondered how many more platitudes he could stand without hitting something.

The room quieted for a while, they were going to admit Reid. Hotch pulled his chair up to the bed. He checked Rossi's phone, caught an update and had to read it three times before anything made sense.

He knew he should leave, go and join the investigation, but he lingered. He held Reid's hand, and tried to make sense of it all. Reid's hand seemed unusually filled out.

Hotch felt a rush of panic, quelled it and pressed the call button.

The nurse was there immediately.

"His hands…his face."

"Let me get in there, sir. She took a look at her patient and hit the intercom. Doctor Hansen to Exam Three."

"What is it?"

"Sir, can I ask you to wait outside for a few minutes, thank you." The whole time she was talking she was crowding Hotch out of the room. Then quietly she said, "Likely acute renal failure- uh, kidney failure I shouldn't be saying this until the doctor confirms it, but that's what it looks like. Sometimes drugs lead to this, especially in cases of overdoses. The doctor will speak with you shortly once he sees him."

JJ rushed through the hallways of the hospital as she followed the yellow tape on the floor. She found Hotch seated in the ICU waiting room. He stood as she approached.

She rushed to Hotch and pulled him into an encompassing hug. "What's happening? How is he?"

"They're running tests," Hotch said as JJ looked around anxiously. "He went into kidney failure and he still hasn't opened his eyes." Hotch's breathing was shallow.

With an effort he looked into JJ's eyes, seemed to gather his strength and then sounding once again in charge said. "What do we have?"

JJ handed him his iPad and his phone. He found Garcia already on the line.

It had been three hours, three hours and not one fucking phone call had come since the doctors had come in and spoken to him about Reid's now gaunt appearance. In the course of those few hours Reid had gained 15 pounds in fluid and then lost 20 once ADH and aldosterone were added into his injection track-lines. His face, it would've been comical how punched out he looked if it weren't for this entire situation, every bit of him hurt and he had no one to project it onto, and that was making Hotch ready to blow a gasket.

As he looked at the hollowed-out cheek-bones of his lover, he could put the places to the five pounds of reported weight loss to each area. It was disgusting how skeletal it made him look. He knew in comparison he was clearly the winner, but his own ghastly pallor had made JJ attempt to say something and then stop several times before she finally opted with a neutral, "Hotch, I could stay with him, keep you updated on anything- everything- if you need to go back to the station. I've convinced the media to hold the stories a bit longer, I can do that from here… Hotch, I know Reid needs you, but so does the rest of the team."

The clincher was the appropriated hand on the bicep of his right arm, not his dominant left, but his more passive right arm and the squeeze. He made sure his breathing didn't stutter when he exhaled slowly.

"JJ, if anything changes, call me. I don't care if it's the nurse opened his blinds or changed his bandages. Remind him he can't sleep in today, we have a case to work…" His eyes shone with a wetness that he was sure she didn't pick up on. She was too busy looking over Reid's features. He quickly looked away, this would not do. He couldn't wear the Aaron Hat and the Hotch Hat at the same time, and until he caught the bastard who did this? He knew JJ would be the second best alternative to his own vigil.

JJ opened the door and sat in the chair Hotch had been using as his sentinel station. "He's going to pull through, Hotch, so you better bring him some good news for when he wakes up."

"You're right, of course." He tightened his tie, "I'll call to check in on the hour."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Hotch." She smiled.

She had no idea what she had just unleashed onto her team.

Hotch drove white-knuckled the entire way to the precinct, thirty minutes thanks to a small amount of traffic and a large amount of aggressive driving that only a veteran of the DC traffic circuit could possibly manage without being pulled over.

As he stepped into the office he was already in command-mode, running at 100%. He could instantly spot the monitor with the live-stream of his Technical Analyst as she communicated to the rest of the team, good, that saved him the trouble of calling her. "Garcia, what do you have? I want it on screen."

He pointed, and like God, he was rewarded for his efforts with the image of the legal aid.

…Of course, God usually had more promising results. Hotch was none-too-pleased by this one-up.

"Bad news, I ran a thorough, and I mean the kind of thorough that the boys in Oz would cringe about, background check, purchase check, everything check- and she completely checks out. Everything about her is air-tight, she has no suspicious purchases, not even suspicious behaviors, if anything she's too perfect to be real. She- she volunteers to read to the elderly every Wednesday, and on Thursdays she's volunteering in the soup kitchen."

"…So you don't find it suspicious that she has access to prescription drugs and desperate homeless people who'd feel indebted to her? Why the hell do we keep you around? You're supposed to find these things!"

Garcia's jaw dropped, she stuttered out a chain of syllables, "I-I-I- b-but, it- but…" She shut her mouth.

"How much did you miss before this? In case we're not all clear, here, Reid is in the ICU because we've been _missing_ this information. We haven't gotten any new bodies here, now run a list of the names that she 'helped' and then pull their medical records and see if there's any overlap and I want this done NOW."

Morgan merely gawked, the screen to the monitor went back to the FBI logo that normally fed their laptops when Garcia's sparkling presence was not observed.

"…Hotch, I know it's your boy but taking our heads off it won't fix him-" Morgan started before Rossi could clap his shoulder to shut him the hell up. Instead he swiped a hand down his face.

"Aaron, we have the preliminary profile, we need to work on that. The legal aid checked out. I get it, you had a _feeling_, but those aren't admissible in court and unless we find something to back it- and we're trying but we're not finding it- we have to keep looking." Rossi's smooth timbre belied his own frustrations.

"That's because you're not looking hard enough or smart enough. Have you even found her fiancé yet?"

"No, Aaron, we're too busy trying to find all the remaining people on the Deuver family tree to narrow our suspect pool, and just before you sent Penelope into a tailspin of emotional self-destruct, she was helping us. Now what, oh fearless leader? Now how will you lead us ahead?"

There was a danger that passed between the looks the two senior agents threw at each other, one audacious challenge, the other loosely held back, but Rossi was certain the next person to move in that room would be thrown to the wall and thrashed unless, by some miracle, Reid was that person… and even then, he might get tossed to a chair for being dumb enough to leave the hospital.

It just figured, the way luck was running, it would be Prentiss.

"I just got back from the CSUs- Reid was drugged with-"

Both sets of eyes flew to her, the normally confident profiler staggered under the weight of those deathly looks.

"-A very high level of Seroquel and a cocktail of pain killers and chemotherapeutic agents, it wasn't the coffee, it was the sugar. We have to investigate if the unsub was really targeting us or if that was meant for someone at the firm."

"The only person who has any holdings or real interest there we spoke with. If the unsub was trying to kill him, it wouldn't be the sugar."

"Huh? How can you just say that, Hotch?" Morgan crossed his arms baffled.

"Because he's clearly diabetic, didn't you smell his fruity breath? He avoids sweets but he's an idiot when it comes to managing his own health. It's called metabolic ketoacidosis."

No one dared mention that he was spending too much time with Reid. No one dared breathe it.

Prentiss cleared her throat, "Now this part is speculation, but the unsub wouldn't want us to trace it back so neatly- now would they? They didn't perform research on us, like they did on the others, so this says the unsub was scrambling, they were caught off guard and didn't know how to handle us. The CSUs told me that in moderate doses, that would've been a perfect recipe for a horrible car crash. The chemo-drugs would tear up the digestive system and increase absorption of the Seroquel and the pain killers, it would knock a person out and leave them unaware that they were even being knocked out… but Reid, well he takes his sugar with coffee in it so he upped his dosage and it was exponential."

"I'd say that speaks to the profile, our duo didn't get a chance to converse, the submissive took the lead and made a mistake?" Rossi proffered.

Morgan shook his head, "I don't know about that, I think this was a contingency plan. They're smart, they had to know this couldn't go on forever and if someone started to detect them, they'd have to find a way to quickly avert attentions."

"But who did they divert to?" Rossi countered, dissecting Morgan's original assessment.

"Who do you think? They want to tie back into the investigation and figure out what we have." Hotch paused and looked up as Sheriff Brown and the Attorney General sat down one Miss Abigail Brightman.

"Why, fancy meeting you both here, where's your friend?" She asked innocently. It took all of Hotch's will power to stay in a neutral position. "My bank called me when I attempted to pay for my wedding dress's final fitting and told me my assets were frozen pending a review. As you can surmise I was a pinch surprised by that. I'd thought if you were really going to investigate properly, you'd at least freeze the assets of the man involved in laundering monies for the Ramierez Syndicate." She crossed her arms defiantly.

"And you're innocent in that, entirely, of course," Hotch said, his voice dripped with a false sense of sincerity that could disarm a suave unsub who thought they'd pulled one over by detecting it already- the trap.

"Well, of course, haven't you ever heard of Erin Brockovich? Look, I volunteer with three groups weekly, I'm getting married to the man of my dreams, I have no reason in the world to jeopardize any of that for however much the Ramierezes are paying. I, I just want to help people."

Hotch looked to Prentiss, "Right, sure, right… you want to help people. That's why you volunteer. Tell me about it… what do you do?"

Prentiss took her by the arm and led her to Interrogation Room 1. Once they were out of earshot Hotch looked at Morgan, "Find her car, her home, and her office and don't come back without the name of her fiancé, her volunteer groups, and her withdrawal records."

Prentiss sat opposite Brightman. Hotch stood near the door. He rubbed his eyes.

"So you're a whistle blower Ms. Brightman?" Emily started.

"Well of course, isn't that why I'm here?"

Prentiss exchanged a look with Hotch, both landed upon a consensus, "…" Hotch leaned against the wall, his nonchalant attitude in direct contradiction to how he felt.

"What can you tell us about your firm? There have been several disappearances and apparent murders."

"Now you know I wouldn't know anything about that," she trailed off and for a moment looked up to see Hotch move up to the table, he sat down and rested his elbows in front of him in a way that left his hands to obscure his eyes in their shadow, Prentiss moved behind her in a subtle, smooth motion.

"Now you're going to have to do better than that, Abby. You want to help us out, don't you?" Prentiss said in a soft but pushy tone.

The woman tucked a curl of auburn brown behind her ear as she glanced at Prentiss. "Well, of course I'm not completely in the dark, I did _research_…"

"You could be our star material witness in the case." Hotch said as he leaned forward just as invested as Prentiss, "Just imagine how many people you could help by bringing them to justice." His voice was level as he spoke as he spoon-fed her hubris.

"And all you have to do is tell us what you know, tell us about the murders…" Prentiss leaned in, the powerful, sexy pose she emitted with her breasts foiled the same energy she knew Ms. Brightman wanted to so emulate. She slipped a piece of paper in front of her, "You might even swing a movie deal, people would be talking about you, not Erin Schmockovich. Just sign here, as a material witness."

"Where did you learn criminal law?" Hotch asked, calmly, he articulated in just a way to distract her as she signed without so much as a downward glance at the paper, "According to your HR records you took a two-year program then were certified with the state of Texas as a Legal Aid. There's no loans, no debt, you worked three jobs to make ends meet… I can't see you having a hobby of reading on the side of all that."

"Well, you'd be wrong." She smiled and pushed the paper back to Prentiss, "As for the murders, I snooped through the boss's drawer, he doesn't even know my name because I'm not his _type_." She finger-curls a strand of hair to indicate the point, "Not anymore, of course… It gives me complete reign, he doesn't notice me moving in and out of the offices. His financial records are a hodgepodge of illegal investments and ill-laundered criminal funds he 'cleans up' by taking as legal fees and consultation fees. No one not going through litigation racks up that large of a debt, do you know what I mean?"

"And how does that tie in with the Horton family?" Hotch pressed gently.

"I can one-better you, I can tell you how it tied in with the fed they just offed." She tipped back in her chair in a relaxed pose.

Hotch's hand was around the handle of his chair, white knuckled as he slowly leaned forward. It was Prentiss who pushed the back of Brightman's chair forward to slam it back to the ground.

"Now whoever said anything about anyone being offed?"

"…It was on the wire." She said, a bead of sweat formed, the pupillary reaction was there.

"No it wasn't." Prentiss said, she kept the chair pinned to the table and left Abigail with nowhere to turn.

"Oh, well, I mean that he was poisoned, I just assumed it meant he was killed…" Her eyes darted around as she read them, by what it read she realized she was hooked, "It was on the dispatch radio in medical code. I'm familiar with it, I audited a class on medical law."

"Please, explain that." Prentiss said, she could see the red behind Hotch's eyes grow by the moment.

"It's in the sugar." She leaned forward, "You know, no one can resist the coffee, but the boss is diabetic, he only ever sets out his Truvia or packets of sugar for his client, but he has a special grocery bag for when certain big-wigs come through, the kind that might stir up trouble if you know what I mean. Most folks take their coffee with a tablespoon-worth of sugar, so he cuts it with an artificial sweetener and dopes them. It kicks in after they leave, no one's the wiser for where it went down."

"That's all well and good, but, Ms. Brightman, no one ever mentioned one of my agents was poisoned, they mentioned respiratory arrest, but nothing about poison. So, let me just ask you this-"

"Do you have an alibi for the deaths of your law firms' clients?"

"Of course. I don't even know…"

Hotch's face dropped. "How many were there?" Prentiss asked, "If we missed any, we'd love to know…"

"You know, I think I'm done talking about this." She said, perhaps the first smart thing she'd said since she entered the facility of her own free will. "I think I'll be leaving now, in fact."

"Oh, actually, I don't think so," Hotch said, a smile darker than ink played across his lips.

"You can't do that unless I'm under arrest, Agent. Am I under arrest?"

"Oh, absolutely not, we have no evidence of your involvement. Yet. But we do have to safe-guard a material witness. You've already signed your consent."

Her eyes went wide.

"You know, sometimes these conspiracy trials can take years. Years of sifting through all of your personal materials to make sure no one is already tracing you, all of it you've consented to already. We don't even need a warrant." Prentiss scoffed.

"I am so tired of this," Hotch hit the table with his hand which caused it to shake and boom in the quiet room. "Tell us who you're working with." With that, the transformation was complete. His entire body language changed from unthreatening and interested to a powerful, clever and dangerous adversary about ready to launch into a choke-hold.

"Hotch." Prentiss rebuked firmly. "Give me a few minutes."

She cleared her throat as she played the role of the one who held back the raging storm of one very pissed off Hotch, she knew she wasn't really holding that power. Not at all, but Hotch was letting the unsub think that, it made Emily a god. Hotch needed as many gods on his team as he could get because not a one of them would begrudge him of his Spencer.

"You see, Agent Hotchner, here, is a little upset. You're here to help us, this is a misunderstanding, you said it yourself… you researched. How many did you find? How many people have been killed because of this? You know, Ms. Brightman, no one called your fiancé to tell him where he can come to visit you. Why don't you write down his name and phone number, we'll have someone pick him up, bring him in."

She smiled, "Sure you will." She wrote down the name Reggie Horton.

"Your fiancé is Reggie Horton?" Prentiss raised an eyebrow at Hotch, Hotch took the piece of paper and stormed out of the room.

Morgan locked eyes with Hotch once the door was closed, "The kid who discovered his grandfather?"

"No, she gave it up too quickly. It's a game, but I was serious when I told her we now can go through ALL of her records as they pertain to this 'Ramirez' case. All we need is the Attorney General to make a case to present for us to look into it." He locked eyes with the AG with a command. Neither usually pulled rank on the other, but Hotch was glad his friend didn't push back on this.

"How long have you two been dating?" Prentiss asked from within the interrogation room, sound played out to the others.

"Three years. It was love at first sight, we met when we were taking a class together," she said flatly.

Prentiss smiled, that was definitely not the voice of a woman in love, "You do know he's going to rush in here and confess his love for you, hold you in his arms and say all the right things any good fiancé would say, don't you?"

"Of course I know that."

"And you're okay with that? With him making such an ordeal, knowing full well that he's gay?"

"What are you talking about?" she said in a dismissive tone, but underneath it was an anger, Prentiss leaned in closer and whispered.

"You know, I had the pleasure of interviewing with him with Agent Rossi, he seemed very _interested_ in the FBI. Especially Agent Rossi's Italian leather loafers, the cut of his pants, well-tailored jeans… yet he didn't really notice my designer bag, or my designer heels…"

"He only has eyes for me, and he just wants to look good for me, so of course he admires sharp-dressed men."

"Oh you know just how full of it you are. He might be using you to keep his family off his back, but that ring isn't from him. He'd never give such a cheap show. If you had an engagement ring from him it would be the size that a lawyer would pick up on. Especially on the finger of some lowly Legal Aid barely making, what, 12 an hour?"

"He LOVES me you fucking bitch, you have no idea how much he loves me! Of course this isn't my engagement ring!"

After a strong nudge into Morgan's shoulder, Hotch locked eyes with the other agent. "Call Garcia, have her start pulling names of the single, eligible bachelors of the Deuver-Horton-Argentos family. No one's putting this much effort in for nothing." He excused himself and stood outside to make his own important call, a call that went unanswered. That wasn't a good sign, he thought as he glared at his phone to debate the merits of a quick drive back to the hospital.

"Oh, don't tell me you're planning the wedding with only a _promise ring_? How childish… I'd think a smart girl like you would know better…"

"How dare you! I never said this was my engagement ring! You're the one presuming I'd even wear it out! We keep our secrets to ourselves! Our good news isn't for anyone else to spy on!"

"Oh-ho, so he's ashamed of you? You don't live up to the standards of the family do you? Some pathetic little girl who couldn't even get a scholarship to a law school, let alone a good one."

"What the hell do you know? I've already got my acceptance letter!"

Hotch stood straight as he felt his hip vibrate. He grabbed the phone, "JJ how is-"

"Hotch you need to get back here quickly. They're saying they need someone who can speak on his behalf, and as you're named in the living will…"

"JJ! What's going on?" He said, voice clipped, authoritative, it dripped with anxiety. Pat locked eyes on his back upon what he heard and excused himself from the interrogation room to corner Hotch.

"His vitals are bad, he barely has a pulse, his blood pressure is too low, they think it's because they have him on a ventilator, they need to discuss options."

"Put them on the phone." JJ nodded silently to the command but somehow knew Hotch could tell her reaction. Immediately, Hotch started, "This is SSAIC Aaron Hotchner."

"Agent Hotchner, I'm Dr. Browden. I'm the respiratory specialist on call. I'll start by saying his vitals are in the hole. His breaths per minute are set to 20, his oxygen saturation levels are 100%, and his carbon dioxide levels are at 4%, he's over-breathing. His pulse is 37 bpm which risks clot formation, his blood pressure is even worse, and is likely from the acute renal failure, it's 50 over 70. I believe if we take him off the ventilator he will either crash or he'll resume breathing on his own which should fix his C-O-two stats, breathing and heart rate."

"And if he crashes?"

"There is a possibility that he could have brain damage or even die, but currently we cannot give him any drugs as his body is overloaded on them and the activated charcoal would completely skew therapeutic levels delivered. If we don't proceed with this there is a strong likelihood that he will develop brain damage because of inadequate tissue perforation for gas exchanges or fall into a coma. Right now his condition is deteriorating. If we do nothing it may lead to death, at least this gives him a better chance."

"…" Hotch caught himself touching his eyebrow with his pointer, a visual cue he'd often give Reid when he'd given too many statistics too close together for normal people to follow, or want to.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Doctor, how long can you hold off on this?"

"Within the hour."

"I'll be there in half of that." With that, Hotch hung up, turned around and locked eyes with Pat. "I don't have time for this. I have to get to the-"

"Make time. It'll be five minutes, tops."

The Attorney General walked up to Hotch and put a firm hand on his shoulder. With a nod of his head he directed them into the Sheriff's unoccupied office.

"Aaron, I've never seen you like this before. Your people aren't reacting well to this bad-cop thing you've got going."

"Pat, don't interfere. There's no time."

"Listen, you and me, we go way back..."

Eyes closed, Hotch nodded stiffly. "You saved my life, Pat, I know that."

"So Aaron just you listen, your team, they really believe in you, you gotta let them do their jobs. My God, Aaron! I've seen you work with these folks, this yelling and barking isn't like you. You think with Spencer in the hospital that he'd be okay with you acting like this on his behalf? I'd think he'd hate it and wouldn't want to be the cause of it."

Aaron's eyes burned with tears, one tear had the audacity to fall from his hard, unblinking eyes. "I need to be the leader out there. It's what I'm good at." He scrubbed at his eyes and wiped away the unshed tears. "If I lose him, I don't know what I'll do."

Pat nodded. "You need to go to him, you're a better leader when you're grounded. Your team knows how you feel. Don't imagine that any one of them doesn't feel the same as you do about Reid. Y'all are a band of brothers right? This isn't easy on any of them and right now you're doing them the disservice of making them walk on eggshells near you. I know you don't want that, so, as your friend- I'm telling you to man up."

Hotch gave a curt nod, "Pat, fuck off." It came off in the same tone they'd exchange over a stiff drink in the past.

Between the time Pat had closed the door to the sheriff's personal office and Aaron had reached Spencer's room, only 23 minutes had passed. Aaron was shocked to see Spencer look so… pale. And it was ridiculous, because quantitatively Aaron knew Spencer could be pasty, but this, this was borderline actual transparency. His whole body looked greyish blue, it was unnerving to say the least.

JJ grabbed Hotch and pulled him into a hug, tears streamed freely down her face, so openly that Aaron was slightly envious of her ability to be so damned open. He had to put on that front that somehow this would work out, that Spencer would pull through this all, back it with some number because it just ought to be done like that.

Mentally he shot off his own farce of digits he'd assumed Reid would say, that statistically the chance he'd come out of it would be 1 in 3304.2 or some bullshit like that, he knew he was pulling numbers out of the air, but it was comforting just to imagine it was his lover babbling pillow-talk to him.

Sharks have revolving lines of teeth, as they lose them, more push forward so they always have a mouthful of teeth. Jaws was more likely based off a bull-shark attack that occurred in rivers up and down the eastern coast of North America. It was strange how knowing that made him feel calmer.

He let out an airy, "Never bet against Vegas…" The doctor looked at him questioningly. "Doctor, you believe this has a higher chance to succeed than what it is currently?"

"What it is currently is a downward spiral. If he gets any worse we won't be able to turn back one way or the other, so yes, it is my professional opinion that with my 15 years of medical experience as a respiratory specialist that you consent to taking him off the ventilator in hopes that his lungs will start to function. If they do, his heart rate should jump up, maybe even his blood pressure, if it doesn't, we'll have to trach him."

Hotch squeezed Reid's hand. "Do it."

Dr. Browden nodded and two additional staffers entered. Aaron pressed himself to the wall to be as out of the way as possible without giving up on Spencer's hand.

Two orderlies held down Spencer's shoulders firmly and his hips more loosely to keep him from shooting up, a doubtful scenario, but anticipated none-the-less.

"In three, two, one-" he started to tug at the white and blue tubing, once he started his speed only increased, what looked like twelve inches left Spencer's mouth, as it came further and further out Spencer's position became more and more upright until he was sitting up, slouched and unconscious. Almost instantaneously Spencer was lurched over hacking.

Aaron's hand immediately found the small of Spencer's back, focused squarely on his unopened eyes as he clutched at the fabric that covered Spencer's back, the grasp was answered with feather-bats of eyelids cracked slightly open, color slowly returned to his lover's face alongside a grimace of heralding pain.

"Mm, Aaron…"

Aaron's hand relaxed and grasped blindly for a glass of water as an orderly left and returned with the offering.

"I'm right here…" He put the water to Spencer's lips who took greedy gulps before he stopped to sputter and cough more thanks to the after-effects of contact with the too-cold liquid. Aaron's hand returned to support his lover's back.

"…Nn, you, you remember that time we were desperate and tried it with saliva?"

Aaron fought the urge to check the room to see the faces of the people who were hearing this, Christ he wondered if this was on purpose, if Spencer somehow knew he was being a grade-A ass to the team and this was his way of addressing it through private-talk in public, but he doubted it, Spencer was clearly in Spencer mode, and not anywhere near clinical, analytical Reid mode.

"I do…"

"You remember how sore I was for the three days after that?" His voice cut in and out, raspy and almost completely unintelligible.

"I vaguely recall." Hotch said, clear to both that he did a little better than vaguely remember it.

"Right now is about 20 times worse. Stop touching my back."

Aaron's hand immediately raised up to Spencer's shoulder before he eased him back to the mattress. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Mmm, think cuddlin' on the clock is'a bad idea? Where am I?"

"Texas State University Hospital."

"Right… what happened? Car crash? You look okay…"

"No, you had a seizure…" He looked at the doctor for reassurance, clearly, Hotch could count on his hand the number of times Reid had 'forgotten' something and genuinely truly just have forgotten it.

The doctor, who seemed to sense the unvoiced question mentioned, "It's common for people who have seizures to block out the episode and a certain amount of time before and after it. In your case, Spencer, you had a grand mal which led to an unconscious state as a result of a toxic overload. To be succinct, you were poisoned."

"We have one of the unsubs in custody, we still need to get the evidence against her, and find her accomplice, but we got the one who did this to you."

Spencer nodded sleepily, "Did I throw my back out or something?" He looked at his legs, willed himself to wiggle his toes and spotted them move freely under the sheet was a massive relief, well, until the doctor continued to speak.

"You had acute kidney failure. Your seizure ceased when you stopped breathing, your blood pressure dropped to an inadequate level to support kidney functions and it starved the organ for over an hour before it was brought back up to even remotely adequate levels, we'll keep you for the next few days, hopefully they will be able to recover now that your vitals are improving and the drug is being chelated and removed from circulation."

"Drug…?"

"You were poisoned." Hotch affirms.

"…Drug?" He says again, his tone held a sharper meaning that Hotch easily picked up on.

"A cocktail of tranquilizers, chemotherapeutics and analgesics that were taken in an incredibly high dosage was administered to you…" Dr. Browden started, Hotch held up his hand.

"You were poisoned, you're getting treatment. You've been out cold for several hours, you're worrying about the wrong things. Rethink and reset your priorities."

He didn't think it would work, such a bull-shit line, but apparently his confidence was just right in the delivery because Spencer turned his head away to blush, "…You think I don't know that?" And just like that, his voice was small, but it was unmistakably Spencer's.

"We need to run a full cognizant exam and check blood-gases, urinalysis, and other fairly intrusive tests. At this point you're getting kicked out." The doctor said before he hit the call button to retrieve several of his colleagues.

"Doctor, thank you." Hotch said, voice full with emotion that had nowhere to go so it hung in the air stagnantly.

"I'll say this much, sometimes the best medicine a doctor can administer is not administering anything. The body of the young can be resilient to a great deal of things, and sometimes our cures have their own syndromes they create. Thank you for trusting in my experience."

Garcia spent several minutes scouring local newspapers for engagement announcements without luck.

"You cannot hide from me and my cyber ninja skills," she whispered at the monitor.

Her outside line buzzed and she answered with a totally uncharacteristic. "Garcia."

"Baby girl?"

"Oh Morgan, how's our boy genius doing? I can't seem to concentrate and Hotch is all up on my nerves and I think he's going to fire me if I don't find answers and I'd totally understand him doing that…"

"Whoa. Just hold up there mama. As far as I know the Reid-man is holding his own, not doing well, but awake and aware. The team is headed out there right now."

"Oh Derek, you don't know, I've messed this all up so badly. I'm still trying to find Abigail's fiancé and just getting nowhere."

"You'll find him, come on, we all have faith in those magic fingers of yours."

"How're you doing, love of my life?"

"I'm not sure how long I can keep the cool profiler image going, Prentiss is doing better than me. We're trying our best, cause, you know, Hotch counts on us. And Hotch, he's keeping himself together with string and duct tape."

"So is Hotch still hanging out with the Attorney General? What's that all about?"

Derek's shoulders relaxed a little at that. "Garcia, I think they have history, I mean close enough for the guy to touch Hotch- serious arm over the shoulders hug. And then, coming out of the room Hotch was all, 'fuck off Pat…'"

"Sweetie, you don't have to lie for my sake. Ok, maybe you do, but you know that's in a totally different way."

"Would I tell you fairy tales?" With that, Morgan's mood had lifted completely.

"You would and I love you for it. So you think my job at the FBI is safe for another day or so?"

"Yeah, I'll keep you on even if I have to beat some sense into Hotch- probably within the near future. I realized he could be tight-assed, but damn!"

"Are you going to the hospital soon?"

"I've got the keys in my hand. I'm over there no matter what in ten."

"Hug boy genius for me. Talk to you then, I have to track down Mr. Fiancé, I think I may finally have a line on him."

Morgan arrived at the SUV moments after Prentiss and Rossi. JJ was stepping into the precinct as he was leaving. "Reid?" he asked instinctively.

"Breathing on his own and crankier than a Jack-in-the-Box."

"Excellent, I'm on my way over there. Garcia has a line on the possible second unsub. Text me when you grab him."

"Text me if there are any changes with Reid." JJ held up her phone in demonstration.

Within moments of his arrival at the hospital, Morgan's phone shot off. He tapped his Bluetooth on, "Morgan."

"Me again, my chocolate liege."

"You have good news for me?"

"I have the best of all possible news, coming to a PDA near you at the speed of electrons."

"You're the best, Garcia. We're at the hospital now."

Hotch got the text surreptitiously at Reid's bedside.

His hand squeezed Reid's while he quietly spoke, "Spencer, I have to leave for a little while."

Reid frowned solemnly.

"I have to go. We have the name and address of the likely partner."

Reid nodded his begrudged agreement.

"I'll have someone come up to be with you, you won't be alone. Please Spencer, stay calm, okay? I'll be back soon. I promise." Hotch leaned down and kissed Spencer gently. "Try to rest, you need to get better soon. I won't be long."

Spencer reached out and touched Hotch's cheek, he left his hand in contact with his lover's skin for several lingering moments. With closed eyes, Spencer nodded.

Suddenly the tears that Hotch had been holding back were trailing down his face. He swiped at his eyes mercilessly once he left Reid's bed-side to patrol the hall.

The Hospital doors swung open and the team spilled into the reception area when Hotch met with them.

"Okay, Prentiss, Rossi- you're with me. Morgan, stay with Reid. Try to keep him calm, make sure he does what the doctors and nurses want him to do. He's pretty irritable."

With great effort Morgan did not respond to the irritable comment.

Prentiss was offering Hotch a bottle of water and Morgan suddenly realized that he hadn't seen their leader drink or eat anything during the entire day. He reached into his FBI jacket and found an antique Snickers bar and put it in Hotch's hand. "Eat it."

"I've got to drive."

"I'll drive." Rossi piped up.

"I've pulled up the address on GPS, let's go." Prentiss grabbed the keys.

Morgan made his way into Reid's room and, certain his friend had to be asleep, quietly sat in the chair recently vacated by Hotch.

Reid cracked open an eye, "I'm awake, you know. Did you know that there are approximately 10000 female worker ants in an Argentine ant colony and that due to their singular lineage in the United States that they have been known to team up with other Argentine ant colonies nearby when swarming their prey which has been known to include lizards?"

"No, I did not know that, pretty boy."

"I'm not anyone's pretty boy. The Argentine ant will protect aphids in order to retrieve its honey-dew secretions."

Morgan put a hand on Reid's forearm. "Reid what's up, man? Don't tell me you suddenly realized your life-long dream is to be an entomologist?"

Reid glowered, "Are you trying to imply something by that?" His eyes drew dark as he glared at his IV, "This thing isn't working, all it's doing is making my skin itch, I'm still dehydrated, and if one more orderly asks me how I feel… You know how I feel? I feel like I'm coming off something. You know how that makes me feel? Horribly! Every muscle is sore, not just my arms, legs, and back and stomach, no. My forehead is sore, my HANDS are sore, my jaw and ears are clicking and popping and my throat might as well be the Sahara and you'd THINK they'd realize that and give me some water, but have they? NO. Because I might be too stupid to fucking drink water, because CLEARLY I'd choke or some non-sense!"

Morgan held up his hands, "Reid, chill… they're only trying to help you. Y'know… nah, nevermind."

The bait worked immediately to catch Reid's attention, and temper.

"What do you mean nevermind? Just say it!"

"You ever get jealous over him?"

"Jealous of who? About what? Morgan, I'm sick. Please make an effort to make sense, okay?" He rolled his eyes, as he did so he spotted a pitcher across the room with a cup that dripped with condensation. He licked his swollen, dry tongue over his cracked lips. He gave Morgan a clear look to which his friend obliged.

"I never knew Hotch was so close to that Attorney General guy, but it makes sense all of a sudden why we got called in even though we were just off a case."

"You mean Pat?"

"Oh, so you call him Pat?" Morgan smirked, "Hotch is on a first name basis too. What's the deal with that? You know they even hugged in the break room? Well, 'Pat' hugged Hotch. It's creepy, it's like they're friends or something… y'know, your obvious situation aside, I've only ever seen Hotch hang out with Rossi, sometimes Gideon but even that seemed more like a work-related function, and then the rest of the team for group dinners. He just… he isn't the 'have friends' type, you know?"

"You mean busy?"

Morgan smiled, "Where'd'you think they met anyway?"

"Interning at a firm."

"No way, I'd say law school, they're way too close to be anything less than study-buddies."

"They weren't, drinking buddies maybe, but they didn't study together. They met while they were interning. They talk about the 'old days' every chance they get when they're not on the clock."

"Are you telling me you've hung out with this guy?"

"I've been with Aaron for over three years now. We've had dinner with Pat and his wife four times, he calls me Data. I just don't talk about it."

Morgan made a face, "Data?" Reid closed his eyes, this was exhausting.

"Yes. Star Trek is immensely popular with a large demographic of people, it's one of their favorite topics to go on about. Aaron usually uses me to end any arguments about episode references."

"And you're not jealous at all about that? That he's talking about that kind of stuff with someone else?"

"Why would I be? We talk about a lot of different and non-work related subjects. Why are you so hell-bent to see how much I trust him, huh? Aaron loves me, I love him, nothing challenges that and we both get it. The end!" He crinkled his eyes together even tighter.

"Alright, alright, I'm just saying…"

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

Morgan leaned back in the chair, if anything, Reid's body language read defensive to the veteran profiler, but he just allowed the room to fill with background noise.

It had taken twenty minutes to get through the red-tape and security to even get inside the gated community, and it only stopped then because Hotch had placed three security guards under arrest for interfering with a federal investigation. He should have done that fifteen minutes ago.

The only downside for making that arrest was that JJ was stuck sitting with the security officers to make sure they didn't tip anyone off any further, Rossi, Prentiss and Hotch made the move to the facility. Of course, thanks to a legendary flash t-storm that Texas was vaguely infamous for, their cells had gone down and no one had been able to request backup from the police station they'd usually acquire.

Rossi went around back while Prentiss and Hotch took the front. Prentiss raised her hand to the sprawling mansion's door-jam and rapped three times.

"Mr. Deuver-"

It was punctuated by a gun-shot that had Prentiss reeling for her own gun until she saw the smoking hole through where the lock had just been.

"Having a key makes it so much easier," Hotch said, he holstered his side-arm even though his hand kept over it. Prentiss shook her head in response. Hotch shouldered open the door.

"What the hell are you thinking? We don't even have the warrant in hand yet. I know you're friends with the Attorney General and all, but…"

"But we don't need to collect any evidence right now, we just need Deuver in custody." Hotch said just as definitively.

There was a squawk as Rossi spoke into the mike that registered in both their ears, "Was that gun fire? Do you have eyes on him?"

"No, Hotch was having a hard time with the door."

"I'd say it was a pretty easy time actually."

Prentiss maneuvered over the splinters of oak that sprayed the floor and cleared the entry-hallway. It was when Rossi chimed in again, "There's a vehicle missing from the garage," that Hotch's mood went from bad to worse…

To be certain, they still had to clear the entire expanse which took 13 additional minutes.

"Clear," Hotch called as he finished the kitchen. Hotch's fist slammed into a wall which created a crater in the wallboard.

Prentiss took out her blackberry, "My phone's still down, I can't reach Garcia…"

There was a slow vibration thrumming on the top of Hotch's hipbone. He quickly pulled his phone and saw the signal for a received text. He opened it immediately.

"Aaron, your custody trick just got out-maneuvered. There's a security detail taking Ms. Brightman here now, I can't hold this back."

"Fucking god damn it!"

Prentiss's eyes went large, in all her years on the team, she'd never heard Hotch say that particular phrase. True, he wasn't as angelic as Reid, but he usually stuck to the low level swears. "What is it?"

"Pat just messaged Brightman's not at the station. He fucking let some bullshit protective custody detail pick her up."

"How much are we betting that she and Liam are flight risks?"

"The question isn't if. It's where." Hotch tried to dial out and received the same 'This call cannot be completed as dialed' message the rest of his team was experiencing, undoubtably.

As they loaded into the car, Hotch heard a tell-tale three-key tune and immediately answered his phone, "Reid-?"

"Aaron, when will you be back? Morgan is driving me up a wall telling me about sports figures and trying to get me on his fantasy football team, whatever that is… I just… I can't take another minute of this, I think he's in with the orderlies and they're trying to make sure I do go crazy… is he in custody yet? Morgan's been on the phone with Garcia for the past four minutes which is longer than the average two minute work-call they normally have."

Hotch's brows knitted tightly with worry. His breath caught in his chest.

"You need to sit tight for a little longer, Deuver wasn't here. We'll find him soon, I swear."

Reid completely missed the tension in his lover's voice, "The Deuver family has a lot of European investors, don't they? He'd probably wind up in Amsterdam or Switzerland."

Hotch's knuckles went white, "Not on my watch they won't."

"An orderly is giving me a look." Reid half-covered the phone as he yelled at the attending staffer, "Clearly I'm not having a heart attack, I had to make a call, no you can't have my phone! This is federal business, you just have to deal with hey!"

The line disconnected. Hotch ran a hand down his face. "Dave, change of plans, we're not heading to the precinct just yet. We're dropping you off at the hospital, Morgan's getting to Reid. Just… don't antagonize him further, for me."

There was no question, but Rossi in his benevolence allowed that tone to pass, "Fine, I don't particularly want to deal with the paperwork nightmare you're going to create once you do find this guy anyway."

Morgan held the phone half a foot away from his ear as Hotch cut into him.

"Why the fuck aren't you in the room with him!" He didn't miss the lack of question in that accusation.

"…Woah, did he call you? That sneaky little… magician." He opted to end it safely, "I swear, he lifted his phone from me. He's out of control. He wanted me out so he could sleep."

"What part of 'keep an eye on him' was unclear, Morgan? That doesn't matter… Deuver isn't here. We'll swing by in another three minutes. You're with us, Rossi'll keep an eye on Reid. We have to reconvene at the precinct. Brightman was released and there's a good chance Deuver pulled the strings for that. We have to find where they're going before they manage to leave the country."

"How the hell did that happen?" Now it was Morgan's turn to be upset.

"Well, what she said is completely admissible in court as a material witness, once it goes public record Pat can arrest her on her statements as a confession. I am not about to let a lousy LA outdo a former DA and AG."

"I get that, I do, but seriously Hotch, if the marshals don't have her, it's either the Rangers or private bodyguards. None of them are going to just volunteer their locations."

"Be outside in two."

"Alright, alright I get it, I messed up… Hotch? Hotch, you there? Son of a… you did NOT just hang up on me…" He rolled his eyes. "Those two are a perfect match," he muttered.

Rossi and Hotch locked eyes once more as Rossi stepped out the car. The screaming message was one that made Rossi all the more unwilling to abide. Hotch might coddle his lover, but Rossi was under no need to protect the younger, capable, agent. That, and it went against his grain to play favorites with his actual favorites.

Three ex-wives and he'd know that sometimes it was just better to be upfront with things. Two lovers who refused to marry him for that very reason told him sometimes he should just keep his mouth shut too, but that shouldn't be a problem. Reid wasn't to his _tastes_ anyway.

Rossi knocked twice on the door to announce himself before he came in. He could already see Reid was in a 'good' mood, what with the full-blown tantrum he was throwing. His arms were crossed, he was frowning and glaring at the door.

"If your goal is to systematically alienate every one of your teammates before we get back to Virginia, you're 2 for 2."

"Hotch doesn't count," Reid stated instantly, as he knew he had had three visitors.

"Of course he doesn't, that's your lover. He's obligated to put up with your bullshit, otherwise he'd be your ex-lover."

Reid rolled his eyes.

"Just go back to sleep or pretending you're asleep or whatever you want to do," Rossi started, "Just pretend that you're on vacation while the rest of us work our asses off to find the people who did this to you."

"What do you mean?" Reid glared. His eyebrow twitched, his back was spasming, a particularly unpleasant after-effect of his poisoning that he had refused to reference to anyone who may or may not ask.

"We have two suspects on the run, about to flee the country and you're asking something that stupid? Never mind, don't you fret, leave the heavy lifting to us men."

Reid sat up indignantly, he winced and clutched his back, that had really hurt, he cracked open one eye to continue to read Rossi, "You mean we don't have EITHER in custody anymore?"

"And most of the phone-lines are still down. They're heading back to the precinct to start back-tracking, but we all know whose forte geographic profiles are. But, if you're not up to it, as I was saying, let Aaron take care of it. It's not like he's been worried about YOU this whole time or anything… just take it easy."

"You trying to start something?" His tone raised, "You even have a map?"

"Google Earth, at your service." He handed over his smart phone after pulling up the app. "You can zoom in by doing this on the screen." He demonstrated the expanding square-shape.

"You really are an insufferable ass, you know that?"

"And that would make three."

"…Three?"

"You, Hotch, and me. We can commiserate over that after we nab these sickos. So, what are you thinking? They racing to the altar or the border?"

"Neither. I don't know much about the second unsub, for obvious reasons, but from what I was reading through in the lawyer's office, a lot of their contracts are tied in Europe. They won't flee to Mexico. It would be 'beneath' them for such a 'common' honeymoon, they'll flee to Europe, get out at Amsterdam or Switzerland and then it's anyone's guess where they'd go… but there isn't a private plane in the world that could make that distance in one leg from here. They'll fly to Aruba to refuel." He tried to keep his phone level despite the fine tremble in his digits, his attempt was failing miserably.

He finally expanded the map to expose three potential air strips.

"They had an exit plan, everything they did had sublevels… they won't go here. It's the closest, so they know that's where we'd go. So it's this one here."

"Not the other? Are you sure? They're in opposite directions, we'd NEVER make it in time if you're wrong."

"I don't make it a habit of being wrong. This one is closer to Aruba, that's where they'll fly out of. Otherwise, they won't have enough fuel and risk being forced to land over US controlled air. They own an Air-bus 319 for business use. That can handle 4 to 6 hours of flight, it's the end of their range. If they want to fly under the radar they'd leave from there."

"Got it. Now go to sleep, you seriously look ready to keel over dead and I don't want to be the one telling Aaron if you did."

Rossi waved as he stepped out of the room.

"Hotch, I'm sending the location where they're likely going. Reid's sure this is the place, he thinks they'll try to get to Aruba and then switch jets to fly to Europe."

"Rossi, why is Reid still even working this? He needs to rest-!" He bit back a few choice words for later and shook his head, he hung up and opened the multi-media file Rossi sent over.

Hotch flipped on the lights and siren and was pulling into the turn as fast as the Tahoe would move considering its high center of gravity. Prior to today all three of the other agents in the SUV would have said they preferred Hotch's driving to any of the others' in the unit. Today, they weren't so convinced.

The SUV seemed to want to overbalance so Hotch compensated and soon they were headed South-bound, away from the precinct. Morgan was calling for backup to the hangar out near Hutchins. He held the grab bar as he pushed in GPS coordinates. And just for a moment, he wondered if Hotch realized the Tahoe didn't actually fly.

It took much less time than the GPS estimated it would. Prentiss felt like she'd run the entire distance with what her breathing felt like. She tapped JJ's shoulder as they all piled out of the SUV. JJ just nodded and started to follow Hotch.

The hangar looked all but deserted until Morgan saw a stray vintage Jaguar. He grinned. "Gotcha, you bastards."

He saw Hotch reach for his phone. He looked over his leader's shoulder to read a text from Rossi. Reid not well, return soon as you can. Hotch's usual paleness went nearly transparent.

Then from nearby they heard Prentiss on her phone. Hotch turned toward her and she just shook her head.

The two suspects ran through the warehouse structure near the hangar. They were splitting up and knocked over storage racks and file cabinets as the team reached the door. Hotch divided the team, "Prentiss take JJ, cover the back, don't let them get back to the car. Morgan, you're with me."

As Prentiss and JJ moved they heard Emily say to JJ, "Reid's bleeding, Rossi's nuts."

Morgan saw Hotch shake his head as if to clear it. He'd heard. It was something Morgan had seen him do before to regain focus.

Quietly the team moved around the building. Guns drawn, they split to cover the doors. Hotch stilled Morgan for a moment as he listened for the sound of a plane, none came. He ghosted a small scary smile, "Showtime." He whispered and Morgan tried the knob on the door. It was locked.

Hotch gave a raised brow and a shrug and backed away from the door. Morgan plowed through the door, he kicked near the lock and separated the door from the frame; the door crashed through and landed inside the building in twain as it left a trail of dislocated hardware. The two agents were inside along with it.

As he walked in, Hotch could see a flash of what was likely a gun barrel behind a stack of parts. As he saw it, Hotch felt the impact of the blast as his Kevlar translated the raw power behind it. He caught his breath. He could hear Morgan call his name, but it seemed remote. He kept his charge toward where he'd seen the muzzle flash go off.

Another blast and he ducked, the Kevlar took most of the brunt of that hit as well.

"Two barrels, Liam. You want to put that down now. I've got 10 shots left here, my partner has 11." He ducked down beneath cardboard boxes that he hoped contained something that would protect him if Deuver had more ammunition. "What do you think your chances are?" He amazed himself at the evenness of his voice. His desire to kill this man was almost overwhelming.

"I'm getting out of here, you won't shoot. You aren't sure it's me you want." Deuver almost sounded convincing. They heard him eject the shells to reload.

Morgan moved to Hotch's location. There was an explosion of a wooden shelf near them as Deuver took a shot.

"Too close," Morgan whispered.

At the door leading to the hangar, JJ and Prentiss hid to either side as Abby came roaring through headed for the plane.

Prentiss yelled something unintelligible and stood gun pointed right at Abby.

Abby raised her arms, then decided to take her chances and charged at Prentiss who neatly moved out of the way.

JJ actually coughed a laugh and aimed her gun at the sprawled woman on the dirt. "You really do not want to get involved in hand to hand combat with my friend, here."

Prentiss bowed toward JJ, then bent down and spoke, "And you so do not want to test my friend's ability to shoot to kill with a single shot, she's batting 1000 with bullet to death ratio. Every damn time she shoots that gun at someone that someone ends up dead. You want to be next?" With that she took out her handcuffs and linked up the suspect. "Hold onto her, Jaje, I'm going to see how the boys are doing."

JJ grinned.

Hotch indicated he was going to try to get around behind Deuver. Morgan shrugged and kept low as he moved across the aisle, he laid down fire to cover Hotch's run.

Another shot from the suspect and Morgan could see Hotch flatten against the wall close enough to touch Deuver. As if he'd telegraphed Hotch's location he saw Deuver look over to see Hotch.

Liam turned the gun and rushed Hotch; he intended to use the thing as a club.

And Morgan watched as Hotch did the unthinkable after he shot his elbow up to connect just below Deuver's jaw, he holstered his Glock and moved in to fight with the suspect. "Hotch!" Morgan yelled. "Don't!"

Morgan kept his gun on the two men who now seemed intent on beating each other to death. Hotch had taken a blow from the gun at the knee and seemed to favor it to the point that Deuver thought he might have the advantage. Morgan had seen this ploy used by Hotch before; shit, the man taught it at the academy. They circled each other, Hotch limped visibly.

When Deuver made his move Hotch took the step that brought him up under the suspect's guard, a dirty move that came up right on the diaphragm and stole Liam's breathe. Deuver recovered quickly and caught Hotch under the eye. Hotch shook it off and moved in close so they were more wrestling than boxing. Deuver brought his head up and Hotch's head snapped back, now bleeding from mouth and nose. He returned the favor and Deuver swayed.

In mere seconds Hotch had Deuver on the ground and both seemed to be bleeding badly. The suspect certainly seemed worse off, now. When Liam stilled, Morgan ran up behind Hotch, Hotch threw another blow. Prentiss came running into the room from the rear door. "What the-"

Morgan was struggling to get Hotch away from the suspect. "Stop it Hotch! Come on man, he's unconscious. Think about what you're doing!"

Prentiss got on Hotch's other side. "Come on Sir, you're done with him, he's quiet now, let me get handcuffs on him…"

Hotch closed his eyes, his mindless attack rushed into his consciousness.

JJ walked Abby into the room. The woman struggled against the bonds JJ had her in. She started to move wildly when she saw how her fiancé bled and yet looked lifeless amidst paper, dust and plane parts. JJ coolly said, "Don't give him the reason to go after you, too."

Prentiss looked up from where she still was helping Morgan hold the unit chief back from beating the suspect to death. "He doesn't need much more reason."

Abby quieted, "Damned faggots, all of you!"

Morgan shook his head. "Yeah there's a good retort. Jaje have we got a bus out there?" Suddenly, Hotch went still in his arms.

Prentiss looked at their leader in alarm. "Did he pass out? There's a lot of blood..."

Morgan lowered Hotch to the floor. "Hotch, Hotch come on man." He felt for a pulse, found one, nodded to JJ. "Find the medics."

Hotch seemed to rouse and Prentiss was in his face, "What's happening Aaron, how're you doing?"

"I'm okay. I'm okay."

"I am totally going to hit you the next time you say that when it's so obvious you aren't."

Hotch gave a huff that might have been a laugh or a sigh. "I think I bobbed when I should have weaved-"

"What?" Morgan said from behind Prentiss, both of them looked worried enough that Hotch nearly laughed.

"-I've been shot. I think the Kevlar got most of it."

"Hotch you were just in a fist fight, after you were shot?"

Hotch shrugged. "Ow."

"Shoulder?" Morgan now looked at the bloody shirt and his own bloody hand from where he'd been restraining the man. "Dammit Hotch! Reid's going to kill me."

"We don't have to tell him..." Hotch had a very vague out of touch look.

"Don't you fucking go into shock!" Morgan touched Hotch's face. "Come on man, stay with us, now."

"It was a glancing shot."

"Hotch I was there, you took one barrel right into your FBI label and one higher. Just how glancing do you want to say it was?"

"Just for Reid, okay?"

Prentiss shook her head. "Right, of course. Do you know the shit we're going to get from Rossi? Do you have any clue?"

"Come on, leave me be. Can't I just have a sore shoulder?"

"Sure," Morgan said, "We can lie and say you took down the door..."

"The medics are here." JJ yelled from behind Prentiss and Morgan. "Hotch, you are going to be good aren't you, you're going to go with them right?"

Hotch nodded, because this was JJ. He tried to think of a time when he'd told her no unequivocally, nothing came to mind.

Morgan and Prentiss had him out of his Kevlar and the Kevlar booked into evidence moments before the medics arrived. The medic cut him out of his shirt and tie, "Shotgun?" Then the medic looked at Hotch's reddened and bloodied hands. "And a serious bare-hand brawl?"

JJ nodded.

"Some of this is over old scar tissue. We'll stabilize, then take him in. Probably surgery."

The battle with sleep suddenly seemed too much and Hotch rubbed his eyes. The medic gave him a worried look. "I'm okay." He looked at Prentiss and reddened.

Morgan and Prentiss stayed at the scene and JJ went with Hotch in the ambulance. The suspects were loaded into a local police van and were being delivered to the precinct house. The sheriff stood as he offered congratulations and thanks to the profilers, though no one really seemed jovial after their victory.

"We'd like a confession, but really, assault on a federal officer, each? That'll put them away for a while."

Once the Sheriff left, Morgan held up his phone to Prentiss, "You gonna call?"

"Not if my own life depended on it. Jaje will take care of it. I think we need to go to the precinct; do a little paperwork, work on those confessions before we head back to the hospital."

"You dog."

Prentiss smiled beatifically. "I will take that in the spirit it is offered. You are a bigger dog."

"Touché."

With the lack of any audience in her immediate vicinity, JJ let her mask drop and for a moment looked as haggard and tired as Hotch had appeared when he was taken into OR 1. Thanks to her previous stint laying groundwork with the staffers, they were more than happy to keep her in the loop. The report was one of the best case scenarios she could hope for. No major structural damage, the Kevlar protected the vitals, and the few pellets that managed to get around it hit muscle. No real heavy bleeding to report, and the most of the surgery was the extraction of the four pellets X-Rays revealed to be embedded in their fearless leader. He apparently also broke his middle and proximal third phalanx of his right hand, whatever that meant earned a coy, humorous look from the nurse.

JJ remembered the time she had been pistol-whipped and that had hurt worse than she cared to admit. She didn't even want to think what it felt like to get shot.

Once she was sure of Hotch's condition, she knew she was out of time to stall. She set her game-face on and went to Reid's room. The fact that Reid had become disoriented enough to start pulling out his IVs and catheter was unnerving, but it was better than some unforeseen complication. She thanked the nurse and steeled herself at the door. Mask now firmly set in place, she opened the door to the sight of Rossi as he watched Reid like a hawk.

In all of the time JJ had spent in the BAU with Reid, she had not once come across a similar scene, a moment where it clicked for someone else so soundly and yet he didn't seem to notice it at all. Even with pop references, there would be the realization that he didn't know something, but now? Nothing.

Instantly, she saw the way Rossi's face hit with realization as he saw JJ open the door and come in. He stood up to prevent Reid from seeing; maybe he was already trying to herd her out of the room, unfortunately for Rossi, Reid had already locked eyes with JJ. Well, sort of.

The look seemed soft, like a person in dead sleep who sat up to stare at you then rolled back over in bed, except Reid wasn't rolling over or anything.

"…" Rossi almost started something but instead he took a step closer to whisper. "Where the hell is he?"

The hostile words betrayed a deeply worried tone.

"Hey Jay-Jay…" Reid slurred as if drunk from compromised blood-flow. She'd only ever seen him more out of it once.

"Hey," she waved to Reid and smiled, she gripped Rossi's hand in a way only a mother could pull off, in that touch was the relayed message that everything would be alright, somehow. "Hotch is still interviewing the suspects, but as soon as he's done, he'll be back here. He sent me in to check on you. What's this about you bleeding? What happened?"

"Oh that…" Rossi said off-handed, "Someone happened to pull out his IV _accidentally_. How someone could be that clumsy…" He muttered as he glanced toward the sheet that still had a red swatch there from the previous incident.

"His IV came out?" She approached Reid and pet his face, "How'd you manage that?"

"I dunno, I think the tape came up and when I scratched my arm… it was a proper fountain." He said distractedly. "Don't tell Hotch, I don't want him to worry, besides, it wasn't that much blood…"

"Kid, you need to take some PTO if you thought that was a normal amount of blood to lose. I thought he was going to bleed to death! Luckily, the doctor got it under control quickly."

"Spence, if you promise to be more careful with your IV this time, we'll keep it between us three. Think you can manage that?"

The brunette nodded in an exaggerated head-bob.

Rossi caught JJ's arm, "I need to get a bite, show me where the car is?"

"Sure, Reid, I'll be right back." She smiled before she let Rossi lead her out. Once the door was almost completely closed, she added so only the senior agent could hear, "He took a few rounds of buckshot to the Kevlar, a couple got around it though. He's in OR 1. I've got Reid if you want to go check up on him, but from what the nurses said, he's going to be alright. Banged up, but he'll live."

"Not if I have any say in it." Rossi gritted out. Clearly bristled with agitation, Rossi made his way to the observation room for OR 1 as JJ walked back toward Reid's room.

"Spence, how're you feeling?"

"Mm, kind of lethargic, where's Hotch anyway?"

"He's at the precinct. He'll be back soon." She smiled as she brushed back Reid's bangs.

"Then where's Morgan and Prentiss?" he said, sleepily.

"They're also at the precinct, divide and conquer, you know?"

Reid blinked, "Right…" his half-lidded eyes started to fall further.

"Get some rest, he should be here by time you wake up."

That was apparently all the push he needed because immediately after JJ assured him of this, he fell asleep.

Prentiss looked at Morgan, "Rock-Paper-Scissor you for it?" she suggested at the edge of Interview Room A.

Morgan obliged, his paper trumped her rock.

"Damn," she muttered before she veered toward Interview Room B and one Miss Abigail Brightman.

Morgan gave a smirk as he hovered before the door to Interview Room A.

Prentiss opened the door with a faint click, entered with a purpose and closed the door with a crisp sound of a latch caught in the proper position.

She stood, three feet back from the interview table to take in the sight of Abigail. She looked livid.

"Oh, why the long face, Abby? You got to see Liam, you can't be unhappy about that."

She crossed her arms, well as much as handcuffs would allow for it.

"Why am I even still here? I'm supposed to be in Protective Custody!"

"Do you feel threatened by me?" Prentiss offered; she tacked on a friendly, satisfied smile.

Abigail's shoulders relaxed a little.

"That's better. It couldn't be helped, Liam is a very dangerous man, he drew a gun on a federal agent."

"He thought you were from the Ramirez cartel! He'd do anything to protect me, he loves me. And thanks to your agent, the love of my life is almost unrecognizable!"

"I'm sure that's not entirely true, you still have all of his bank accounts memorized I'm sure." She put a hand on the table. "Because, Abby, let's admit it. Liam is not the smartest man in the world, he's not even particularly handsome, but what he lacks in power and charm, he does make up in bank-roll, now doesn't he?"

"I don't like what you're insinuating. Liam and I love each other very much. I think he's the most attractive man I've ever seen."

"Attractive, but not handsome." Prentiss offered, Abigail didn't seem to find it at all helpful.

"He's distinguished, he's well-read, he's fascinating! It has nothing to do with the money, that's why I had no problem signing a prenup!"

"Are you sure that's your only reason?" Prentiss leaned in. "Because, from how I can tell, prenups don't count against a widow."

"Liam isn't dead! Why would you even imply such a horrible thing!"

"Why? Look around you, Abby, there is a pile of bodies all tracing back to the both of you… why would I make that leap, huh? I wonder. You're a smart girl, why don't you tell me where that reasoning came in."

"I didn't kill anyone and neither did Liam! I told you, the Ramirez cartel…"

"The Ramirez cartel, riiiiight. What area do they operate out of? Yucatan?"

"…"

"Oh, that's right, everything you mention will be used as witness statements, so you have to be VERY careful with what you say… do you need a moment to construct your lie? Oh, I'm sorry, I mean to remember your story? We'll of course get right on collaborating that. How did you meet Liam anyway?"

She pursed her lips.

"Oh come on, you're a whistle-blower, a real Erin Brockovich, aren't you? See, last time I watched that movie I missed the part where she got two federal agents admitted into the hospital…"

"The Ramirezes-"

"Abby, cut the crap! Liam is right next door and he's singing, he's rolling on you. He's a trust-fund kid, you think he can handle negotiations? You think he's going to do time for you? That he'll take the fall? He's pushing it on you!"

"No, he's not." It was how she said it that made Prentiss's neck hairs raise. That affirmation that he wouldn't dare, not on her.

"Oh really? Abby, who's smarter, do you think? Liam or you?"

"I'm done talking now. I want a lawyer."

"Oh, great idea. Liam asked for his already, top notch guy too, best defense attorney in Dallas, yet he didn't request one for you… do you have a preference? Or… can you only afford a public servant?"

"I said I'm done talking!"

"Well, then, why don't you just listen while we wait, but, just remember, all the deals we're offering go off the table once Liam signs his full confession. It probably reads a lot like a finger-pointing entry though."

Abigail Brightman leaned forward with a grin, for a moment Prentiss wondered how she could have those kinds of stones.

"Fine by me if he does… anything he says I said? It's inadmissible."

Prentiss's lips thinned.

"What? You're not going to congratulate me? We just got married…"

Morgan took a moment to look at the suspect from the other side of the one way mirror. He took a couple deep breaths and tried to rid himself of the feeling that he should have let Hotch kill the guy. That was probably not an approach he'd try. Rossi would probably tell him to sympathize with the guy, to make him feel like Morgan understood where he was, how his life had brought him to who he was now. The main thing was getting him to talk, and to keep him in a talkative mood. Morgan knew once a guy like Deuver started, anything could happen. If he was lucky that thing would be a clear confession and not calls for an attorney.

The tape recorder fit neatly into his hand. As he walked into the interview room he placed the device on the table. He gave Deuver a cheeky smile and turned the recorder on.

"Has someone read you your rights? You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

Liam stared for a moment at Morgan as if he had grown a second head, Morgan can't help but think this was to his favor. "Yeah, I understand. I've got nothing to hide. I know my rights."

As he sat across from Deuver, Morgan remained quiet as he measured him.

"So why are you Mirandarizing a victim anyway? I hope you know your friend is going to end up in jail for assaulting me!"

"Liam, you shot at a Federal agent, everything he did to you after that became fair game. On top of that, he's in the hospital for surgery. He could probably retire off the civil-suit he could raise against you."

"He tried to kill me!"

"Liam, Liam, Liam, this guy doesn't try, he either succeeds, or he didn't want you dead. Besides…" Morgan reached into his pocket and pulled out a buckshot round and emptied the buckshot pellets onto the table. "You have a different problem to worry about. In case you're wondering, this is the same type of ammo our lab pulled from murder victim Reginald Thomas Horton. Know what else these are the same as?" Morgan opened up the shell casing to pour out the fat pellets. "This is one of the rounds you had chambered in your shotgun that you fired at my boss."

"Proves nothing."

Morgan gave a sympathetic smile, "You know that's one hell of a coincidence. Where'd you get the shotgun?"

"It was at the hangar. It was just there."

Morgan waited for a few moments as he watched Deuver watch him back.

Morgan shook his head slowly. "You know, we FBI agents hate coincidences. Don't really believe in them. No, Mr. Deuver, I think you took this from Mr. Horton. I think you were looking for something in his house and he came at you with this gun. It probably wasn't even your fault. If he hadn't come at you, none of this would have happened."

"I wasn't there." Deuver spoke in a gravelly calm tone. "He wouldn't have had a gun. My uncle had crippling arthritis. His guns were relics of his youth, and you are fishing Agent Morgan. And how I see it? The jury is going to think the FBI planted that shot gun to cover up their botched attempt to kidnap a federal witness that I was fighting valiantly to protect. This is Texas, we like Rangers here, not Feds. I was protecting me and my own from an unidentified threat. You can say all you want to the contrary, but the proof is you didn't say who you were."

Morgan slid back into his chair, apparently Deuver thought he was pretty slick. "And the jury's going to believe you were taking shots at a drug cartel for some trashy woman you banged a few times."

"She's not some- how dare you! You take that back! She is the love of my life!"

"News flash- she's a murdered, Liam! You've been played. At the worst, you got so twisted up with her that you thought killing your family was your own idea, and at best you had no idea what she was capable of until it was too late. Abigail, women like her… they search for men like you. You know what they think of you as?"

"Love of her life," he said in bravado.

"Lotto ticket, jack-pot, you facilitate the love of her life. Money. Greed. More."

"You have no idea what Abigail is like. Didn't you say you're a profiler? How can you be so off base and keep your job?" He scoffed, "So THIS is my tax dollars at work, huh? What a laugh."

"Right, Liam. She can kill a little old lady, slip her poison in a nursing home, but she couldn't possibly lie to _you_."

"There's no proof anyone in my family died in a nursing home! No one in our family would be sent to such a place, so, again, you're fishing. Agent Morgan, as enlightening as this all is, really…"

"Hold that thought." Morgan said, he stood as the swift knock came to his door, silently he said his own thanks that the creep didn't manage to utter the call for a lawyer.

Out of the room, Morgan shook his head. "This guy… What've you got Prentiss?"

She looked pale, almost defensive when she spoke, "You know how we thought they might get away before we got to the airstrip?"

"Yeah that's what all that hell-bent driving was about."

"They stopped."

"They what?" Morgan looked mystified and Prentiss felt it.

"I called Garcia. They stopped and got married." Emily looked none-too-pleased. "Abigail's already spouting spousal protection from conversations held in confidence with her husband."

"Are you serious?" Morgan stroked his hand over his head. "Okay, I can work with this..."

Prentiss stared at the ceiling. "Let's hope."

Morgan stood up straight and walked into the interview room with another made to order smile. "Congratulations, I didn't realize you'd gotten married. So how much are you worth?"

"We have a prenup."

"Liam, Liam, Liam- I meant in life insurance. That's separate. And if you go to prison, how much control over your wealth will she get. Most of it? All of it?"

"You don't understand, someone like you would never understand the beauty of our love."

"Do you really think Abigail would be happy being a trophy wife for you? I've met her, she's strong. She has potential, she could've been a top attorney in five years if she just got the degree… but you? You're a trust-fund kid. What the hell could she possibly feel for you except disdain?"

Liam smiled as he thought of his wife, clearly not in the way Morgan was painting her.

"So you know, she's throwing you under the bus."

"Sure she is. That's why you want me to confess so badly, to beat her to it, right?" He rolled his eyes.

Morgan shrugged. "Liam, all we want is the truth about what happened. If you know the truth it's in your best interest to talk to us."

Liam looked at his handcuffed hands. "Oh, clearly, my best interest. Since meeting you, I've been beaten physically, threatened, arrested, and now you want me to confess to a murder I didn't commit."

"You know, you're right, Liam. I have this all wrong. Don't I?"

"Finally, you're making sense." Liam replied, he leaned forward in his chair.

"You sick son of a bitch, YOU killed your old auntie in the hospital, YOU put the poison in her mouth and watched her drink it down as she swore she'd get better in time to dance at your wedding… and then, as if that wasn't sick enough, YOU strangled your own cousin with her nylons. Did you rape her too? How do you think Abby would feel to know you got off with another woman? Huh? Should I ask her? I think I might… sit tight-!"

"Wait… what? WAIT! I NEVER did that! I've NEVER cheated on Abigail!"

"The details are going to come out, Liam. We have her autopsy, we know what you did to her… all of that evidence is going to get logged. Right along-side with THESE pellets from the same shot gun that killed your uncle."

"But I didn't RAPE her!"

"You just killed her?" Morgan said in such an offhanded tone it was amazing how easy it was for Liam to reply.

"Yeah…"

Morgan was leering as he leaned forward, "honesty can be rewarding, can't it Liam?"

"You can't tell her I fucked my slut cousin! She'd be so hurt, but if… if I didn't the cops would've looked in a different direction. I had to!"

"Tell me about what happened to Reginald. You come clean, you tell me everything and I'll keep your indiscretions from the Missus."

Seven confessions later and Morgan almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. After each one was fully written and signed, Morgan gathered up the pages and walked to the door. He stopped just in front of it.

"You know… let's try this again now Liam. Except now, instead of this bullshit, you start telling me about the crimes you DID commit and then crimes your WIFE did."

"I already told you everything…" He said in a hushed tone, his body coiled so tightly, Morgan was sure he would spring at him like a cobra if he got close.

"Well, I wasn't completely forth-right with you, my friend." Morgan turned the chair around and sat in it squarely. "You see, my colleague told me about your marriage, my other colleague told me about Abigail's 5.9 million dollar policy on your ass. Not to mention she'd get everything from your will, wouldn't she? You already signed that before you even inked the marriage certificate, right after the pre-nub though, right? So what? She got life insurance on you, right? Big deal, you're important to her… but did she tell you she was married before?"

Suddenly, Liam's eyes went wide.

"Oh, I take that as she DIDN'T… oh don't worry, she wasn't divorced. Her first husband died in a nasty car wreck. Want to know how?"

Liam crossed his arms defensively.

"He crashed his rental Jaguar going over 100MPH into a telephone poll, his breaks were faulty. Funny, it's the same kind of Jag you drive. Did you buy that because she mentioned a fondness for them? See, Abigail is a jack of all trades, and a master of break tampering, criminal defense law, and legal documents. Huh. Curious combination, don't you think? So, Liam, why don't you tell me where Abigail was on the 28th of last month when 'you' were visiting your grandmother, and by visiting your grandmother I mean in a board meeting in Switzerland."

"…That bitch… she NEVER mentioned another man!"

"Liam, you're missing the forest for the trees, man…"

"So she killed him too, huh? And it never stuck…" He let out a depraved laugh, "It's impressive. I love her, you know. So what if she was married before?"

"It's called a pattern, Liam. She doesn't love you, she exploited you, and if you don't speak up it's going to work. She's going to go free and you get to sit in a box until the rest of a very short life-sentence until they hit you with the needle."

"She killed my little cousin. She shot the bee-hive down and knew it would kill her. I think she was 8 still…? You know why? Because her name was before mine in my grandmother's will. She'd have got 0.5% more than me in holdings. That would've been the difference of a college education."

"Who else, Liam? Who else did she kill?"

"I'm tired of talking to you now, Agent Morgan. I wish to invoke my right to an attorney."

Morgan slammed his hand on the table before he snatched up the paper and walked out of the room. From the one-way mirror he watched as Liam rested his head on his forearms and took a nap.

It was Morgan's turn to knock on Prentiss's door.

"I have a full confession, he also turned on his wife for the suspicious death of his young cousin and for his grandmother."

"There has to be more…" Prentiss said as she gave a quick glance-over to her timetables that Garcia had sent over.

"Yeah, but he's still holding on to how much they love each other."

Prentiss cracked her neck left to right then right to left. "Gee, thanks. I'll see if this will get her to come clean, but I don't think it will."

Prentiss closed the door before she set a smile onto Abigail.

"You sure picked a good one."

"I know, love at first sight, can you believe it?"

"For a patsy like that? I bet. Except, did you or did you not count on him telling us about your visits to his grandmother and your hobby of pest-control?"

"Agent Prentiss, you have been grilling me for four hours straight, and before that I was in here for 3 straight. So, I say we close this up because I want to get some sleep tonight."

"All that will take is a truthful confession, and then I'll make sure one of these fine officers will escort you back, personally."

"I love Liam. I know it's hard for you to believe. I'm just some twisted, manipulative woman using him, that's what you think, but you're wrong. He's one of the most fun people I've ever been around. He's handsome, he's smart, and he's got the same streak as I do. We're two of a kind. But, I was always smarter than he was. If he had it his way, your little buddy in the ICU would've been dead in 5 seconds flat from lethal levels of cyanide. I have a little more style than that, I knew to put it in the sugar and, if he was normal like anyone else with a tablespoon of sugar in their cup, you'd have been reading about a fatal car crash, tragic, but no one would've checked with the firm until the evidence was long gone. I tell you that because, well, do you have just an idea of how many people die a day from accidental causes? If I wanted to be a millionaire, I would be without the help of my dear husband. You don't even have a clue of how many people have died under me. Or under which name, which town, which age, and you never… ever will. I'm invoking my right to an attorney, I can afford one, so I'll place that call now. Until he gets here, I'll be in my cell."

Abigail Brightman crossed her leg as if she hadn't just lost the chess match as she waited for Prentiss to do as she was instructed.

Prentiss leaned in close, "Abby, I'll let you in on a secret of my own. I'm not your dog, I'm not your maid, and I'm not your secretary. We're going to sit in here until I'm ready to leave, and while you have every right not to talk to me, you will have the pleasure of listening to me until I'm ready to leave."

After forty-five minutes, Prentiss looked back to Abigail who's face had soured and darkened nicely. "Know what? I think I'm done here for now."

Prentiss picked up her materials and left the room, she spotted one of the officers. "Keep an eye on her."

The officer took Abigail back to the main holding area. Prentiss and Morgan handed off the confessions to the local detectives before questioning whether or not JJ had told Reid the extents of Hotch's shoulder injury. As it was a hard thing to read from the precinct, they opted to just converse idly around the coffee pot until shouts were coming from down the hall.

Morgan and Prentiss locked eyes quickly before they headed toward the holding cells.

"We need medical assistance!"

"What's going on?" Prentiss started.

"Abigail Brightman committed suicide, she cut her carotid. The whole area's a bloody mess."

"Damn it! Wasn't someone watching her?" Prentiss shook her head in upset.

"I was, but… but she was turned around and by time I saw the blood it was too late…"

"…Check on Liam Deuver, he'll be next." Prentiss said as she massaged away at her temple and the headache that was about to bloom.

"…We might be too late…" One of the deputies announced, "He's hanging from his own belt… Wait, wait I feel a pulse!"

Morgan ran into the interview room, as he used his superior height, he helped the cop lift Deuver so that he was no longer hanging. Prentiss moved a chair in and, as she stood on it, undid the belt. Morgan set Deuver on the floor. And again felt for a pulse. "He's still with us. Get a medic in here! Why did he have a belt?"

Deuver curled into himself as he muttered, "…couldn't even get this right…"

Morgan knelt on the floor next to Deuver. "You're going to be okay. Can you hear me? Abby's gone, man."

"I knew, I knew she'd do it. She's always been so much stronger than me. I loved her, I did, you know…"

Morgan nodded. "As much as you could, yeah I get that…"

Deuver frowned, "We really were a great team- better than Bonnie and Clyde. There's more than you'll ever know…"

"What do you mean, Liam? Liam!"

The medics crowded around Deuver and Morgan relinquished his charge to the medics with a terse, "Watch him, this time keep him on suicide watch!"

He looked at Prentiss who stood near his shoulder. "Let's get to the hospital, we need to make sure everything's okay. We need to get our team home."

Rossi carried Reid's messenger bag onto the plane. The rest of the unit shared Hotch's and Reid's go bags. Morgan and Rossi had intended to let Hotch carry his own briefcase, and he did for a few steps before Prentiss swooped in and carried it off. She met Reid's eyes and rolled her eyes as she indicated which of the other members of the team who were gutless enough to allow the unit chief to think he could easily carry the darn thing. Reid flashed her a grin and nodded.

Reid managed to get up the staircase with Morgan's help and onto the couch before he collapsed into a heap. He only really wanted to sleep, but he worked hard to make sure he stayed awake until Hotch was settled in across from him. He'd seen Hotch take something in the car, at least he could get some release from the nagging of broken bones and the shot up shoulder. Reid's craving and jealousy spiked for just a moment and he sighed at himself. _Get over it_, he thought.

The rest of the team piled into the jet and for a few minutes there was intense activity as things were stowed, books and mp3 players found, pillows and blankets unearthed. Reid sat up and buckled in, and quelled his sudden need to laugh out loud as JJ leaned over Hotch and buckled him in and covered him with a blanket. Hotch had the instant look of a five year old about to tantrum when JJ whispered, "One word. And Aaron went totally silent.

"Thank you." He said contritely.

Emily grinned at the scene, and Hotch shook his head and frowned and said. "What?"

"Nothing," was the characteristic Emily response.

There was a muttered, "Sure thing Princess…" from Morgan as he slipped his earbuds in place.

"Watch it you…" Prentiss corrected as she held a pen in a vaguely threatening position.

To bypass the situation, Garcia walked by and placed an iPad on the seat next to Hotch. "All work files are removed, so you know. But I found an author you might like, it's a mystery Spider Season, totally not CSI."

Hotch smiled widely. "Sounds good."

Garcia pretended to shiver, "Ugh, spiders." She turned toward Reid, "I got you something at the B&N near the hotel, its fairly new…"

"Oh wow Garcia, I've been meaning to read this, and even have a copy at home, I think it's nominated for a Hugo… All Clear, thank you so much."

Before the plane took off Reid was a quarter of the way through the doorstop of a book. Hotch was dozing, the iPad on the small table in front of him.

Within an hour the only people awake on the plane were the pilot and copilot.

No one had even started a pot of coffee until the plane was 20 minutes from D.C.

As they deplaned, Morgan raised the keys to the BAU's SUV, "I'll get you guys home, unless we need an ambulance..."

"I think you're confusing an ambulance for a taxi." Both Reid and Hotch looked at him then each other.

Morgan waggled his eyebrows.

Reid shrugged. "…Just get us home."

Morgan, influenced by Prentiss's motion on the plane, grabbed Hotch's briefcase to add to the cargo he juggled with to fit into the trunk and not look as comical as either Hotch or Reid as they managed the 'upright' look.

"Reid, don't you even think of sitting back there, I'll never get you out." He corrected as Reid started to open the rear passenger door.

"I'll sit in the back." Hotch offered as he slipped past Reid through the open door and gave him a thankful smile. Morgan opted to ignore Reid's soft blush.

"Could you two save that for…"

"For what?" Reid asked, Hotch locked a steely look with Morgan.

"Forget it. You two better rest up, I don't want to see either of you before next Monday, you hear me?"

"That's 9 days…" Reid started, Hotch merely managed a discontented look.

"I'll act as SAIC until you're off your leave, just keep boy wonder here from creating his own 'doctors orders' they said he needs to rest, you can manage that much with a banged up shoulder, can't you?"

"Of course." Hotch said as he accepted the challenge, because honestly, he saw nothing unpleasant about a week on the mends, on a couch with his lover. In fact, it sounded utopic.

"I don't need to see that lovey-dovey look…" he said under his breath. Reid looked at his friend for a moment, he suspected he was catching a glimpse of his jealousy at their situation as odd as it were.

"Don't worry, I can still handle some paperwork if you drop off the files, just make sure you do that while this one's passed out."

"Hey!" Hotch objected, in more playful of a tone than Morgan had expected. Reid let out a soft laugh.

"…Yeah, I'll do that." Morgan smiled. "So am I taking you back to Hotch's then?"

Reid nodded once, "Yeah, my go-bag should have enough stuff for me to manage."

"Sure," Morgan said, it didn't take a genius or a profiler to realize that was because he kept the Hotchner home well-stocked in his own attire.

Within another thirty minutes, Morgan managed to get to the Hotchner home and unload the trunk, deposit Reid on the couch, and watch Hotch move himself to the same couch, though it looked much more like a front than willful defiance to Morgan's concern.

"Alright, don't do anything to get yourselves in worse straits before Monday, that's an order." He smirked. "I love getting to say that, and my window is small."

"You're damn right it is," Hotch added before he sent Morgan off with a head nod, Reid waved from the couch before he buried his face into a pillow and started to nod off.

Reid sat in the corner of the sofa. His back propped against the arm of it. His mismatched socked feet on the pillows at the other end, Aaron between his knees as he leaned into his chest. He felt overwhelmingly good for the first time in what felt like a long time.

They were watching a home repair program on the television, some Canadian guy very perturbed about an inspection from what he could gather between momentary naps. Aaron seemed mostly asleep, and would from time to time try to rearrange Reid for his own comfort. Reid would smile and smooth Aaron's thick hair to sooth him.

Aaron would resettle, then try to make Reid a pillow again. "Sleepy...?"

"You're doing it again," Reid whispered breathily.

"I'm just sitting here. Watching TV, how can you blame me for something? What are you blaming me for, so I know?"

"When you rub your head against my chest, it's very sexy."

"Is it? Should I stop? Do you need more rest?"

"You know how when I run my hand up your inner thigh…" Reid demonstrated.

"Uh, yes. It overcomes most of my ability to resist you…"

"Well, I think I'd like not to be resisted anymore today."

"How's your back? We really do not want to have to call 911, or anything."

"I'm not the delicate flower you seem to sometimes think I am."

Aaron twisted a bit in Spencer's arms, he leaned in to kiss his neck then licked and breathed on the cooled spot, "I do know that. I also know that my second favorite hand and first favorite arm are useless."

"Well there are things that can be done." Spencer smiled, he blushed a little. "And I will not recite a list of them right now."

Aaron grinned. "I'd really appreciate that."

Fully turned to face Spencer, Aaron grinned and spread himself on top of the other man. "Is this better or worse?"

"Depends on if you're trying to make me come in my pants..."

With a laugh, Aaron lifted up a little and pushed Spencer's sweats down and softly moaned at the sight of the engorged penis. "You _are_ ready." Aaron shrugged and regretted it. His shoulder sent the signal for his body to desist. He ignored it of course.

With just enough time for Aaron to reach into the end table, pray for lube, and have his prayer answered he asked. "Are you sure about this? I really could stop if you need me to…" Aaron lifted the lotion from the drawer.

Eyes closed, Spencer actually thought about it. "I am sleepy... My back does hurt..."

"I could take care of this…" he grinned at Spencer. "I have my ways."

"Don't look at me like that..."

"Like what?" Aaron looked at him all innocence. "You know I could."

Aaron pulled off Spencer's sweats with a flourish, his arm complained only a little. He knelt on the floor and put his head on Spencer's stomach, and very gently rubbed his cheek against Spencer's erection.

After he moistened his lips with his tongue, he kissed the other man's cock then licked gently.

Spencer reacted with a groan, "Aaron, Aaron you've got to come up here! I need to touch you..."

He laid on top of Spencer then moved until both erections rubbed together. He moved slowly, his legs still between Spencer's. He lifted his body just enough to get his hand between them. He held his own and Spencer's cock, and rubbed them together, the heat from the friction worked him into a sweat. Aaron let his body do the work after a short time; his unwrapped hand went to hold on to a slim hip as his body continued the movement that rubbed against his lover. He reveled in the slickness of the sweat between them.

"So beautiful." He said as he kissed Spencer's ear and neck. As he lightly dragged his teeth on Spencer's cheek he breathed, "You are _so_ fucking beautiful..."

They moved together and Aaron quieted Spencer. "Try not to move so much, please let me do the work Spencer."

After that Aaron felt completely mindless, he knew he said Spencer's name and begged but nothing registered except the mind-numbing hot blaze of explosions in his mind that came with having Spencer with him. He came in hard spurts. Spencer yelled at him, though he was never sure what had been said. He felt Spencer's completion within moments. As sleep crept over them, Aaron moved his weight off Spencer as best he could. And for a while there was quiet, except for the explanation of the guy on the TV about tile lines and quickset.

Aaron sleepily walked into the bathroom and ran a hand-towel under warm water for a moment before he walked back into the living room and knelt down to clean up his lover's belly.

"Mmmmm." Spencer managed. "You are likely the most fastidious man I know."

Aaron smiled and said, "And all these myriad of men you know have a kink for dried-"

"-Uhmm, no, well maybe, but I like this better." With that he took the towel from Aaron and reached over and cleaned Aaron's already clean abdomen and rubbed lower. "You're so sexy."

"I may be too old for this." He said as there was a definite twitch of interest.

"You, Aaron, are going to figure out how this next part works. Cause I really want your cock now."

"Spencer you don't?"

"And look Aaron, there's interest," he grinned as Aaron's erection began to fill. "I love that."

"Yes I do know that, you love me for my cock."

"Well only partly." Spencer laughed, "It has this secret place in my heart, you see."

"So romantic…" Aaron smirked and bowed in to kiss his lover.

"It is nice, and big and attentive." Spencer grinned as Aaron turned red, his fingers coaxed it to grow more for him.

"...Sounds like a vegetable."

"Oh no, never a vegetable. Come on Aaron kneel up over here."

"I don't want my weight on you."

"I do. Come on, just a little closer."

"Spencer?"

Aaron got back onto the sofa, and knelt over Spencer's chest. His erection nudged against the other man. Spencer scooted down to get it into his mouth. Aaron tried to move forward and Spencer caught his hips. He sucked the tip of Aaron's penis hard into his mouth. Aaron gave a shout, and Spencer felt the reaction straight through the hardened organ in his mouth. He smiled. Aaron really was easy.

He licked his way over the length of it and swallowed against it again. He allowed himself to swallow as much of the organ as he could. He exhaled noisily into the black nest of pubic hair, his hand reached and played with the other man's sac. He pressed two fingers against Aaron's hole and Aaron tensed around him. His whole body went from wanton motions to that complete tension just before the spring snapped.

Spencer looked up at the well-built man who was his, he swallowed again and felt the rush of come in his throat. A moment longer and he would have come himself without being touched.

Aaron took only a moment to pull out of Spencer's embrace and back up 'til he was kneeling between Spencer's thighs and down on Spencer's cock. He pushed fingers inside of Spencer, held the younger man's hips down with his splinted hand to try to contain Spencer's near overwhelming need to thrust hard into his mouth. Spencer was there and over in a moment. Aaron lightly tongued over his length as he brushed just the implication of teeth on him.

"Fuck you, Aaron." Spencer ground out. "Fuck."

To which Aaron just smiled and nodded his agreement.

Erica Jong once said, "Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. ...It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."


End file.
